


This Isn't My Idea

by NightAuthor



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Erebor Never Fell, Alternate Universe - Hobbits Never Left Anduin, Alternate Universe - Swan Lake Fusion, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Female Bilbo Baggins, Female Gimli, Gen, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightAuthor/pseuds/NightAuthor
Summary: Bel was supposed to be marrying the man she loved. Instead she's marrying a prince she's never met, and if he's anything like his uncle, he'll be a completely insufferable git.Fíli was supposed to be free of any sort of arranged marriage. Now he was about to marry a Hobbit girl with nothing more than his uncle's reluctant approval to go on.Still, this would protect every other Hobbit on Arda, at least the ones who'd survived the war.Now it was only Bel who'd be fighting for her life.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins & Fíli & Kíli, Bilbo Baggins & Gimli (Son of Glóin), Bilbo Baggins/Fíli
Comments: 43
Kudos: 155





	1. Of a Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick preface:  
> 1) I hope you'll have patience with my attempt at a decent prologue, and  
> 2) If anyone has any suggestions for how to improve the summary, please let me know; I'm horrible at summaries.

This is the world of the Ring:

Men rule Gondor and Rohan and are spread throughout Arda, having recovered from their shame after Isildur’s fall.

Elves rule Rivendell, Lothlórien, Mirkwood, and the Grey Havens, some recovering from the shame of the First Age, others having long since sailed to the West.

Dwarves rule the Ered Luin, Khazad-dûm, Erebor, and the Iron Hills; the slaying of Durin’s Bane by Gandalf the White (formerly Grey) opened the way for Khazâd-dûm to be reclaimed, which the Dwarves did with great enthusiasm.

Hobbits reside in (though truly, they rule) the Shire, in what was formerly the Mannish kingdom of Arnor, and are far less ignored by the other races after four of their kind bore the One Ring (through various ways and means) to the fires of Mount Doom. Conventional wisdom calls them a sort of short Man, and Hobbits accept the description, having forgotten their origins long ago.

This is a world without the Ring:

Men rule in Gondor and Rohan, and have no shame to atone for, as Isildur was never seduced by the Ring and indeed, neither were the Nine.

Elves rule Rivendell, Lothlórien, the Greenwood, and the Grey Havens. As Sauron had never crafted the Ring, he had no need to search for it, nor capability, and thus never corrupted the Greenwood with his presence. All the same, their shame is unchanged, for the most part.

Dwarves rule the Ered Luin, Erebor, and the Iron Hills; Khazâd-dûm is lost still, but without the One to corrupt the Seven Rings and thereby the Dwarves themselves, their greed was lessened, and the Dragon was never called to Erebor. Their feud with the Elves continues, however. It was begun long before Sauron worked his mischief.

Hobbits control the Valley of Anduin. Without Sauron to poison the Greenwood, the Hobbits were never driven from their ancestral home, and they flourished. Without the Wandering Days to take their history from them, they remembered their origins and their culture. Without the need to resettle, they had no obstacles in their work, and learned to craft as Shire-Hobbits could only dream of aspiring to.

This is not to say that Hobbits were unlike themselves in Anduin. Anduin-Hobbits were as peace-loving, compassionate, and cheerful as Shire-Hobbits. But even Shire-Hobbits taught themselves to blow glass and craft looms, to carve out smials and invent little, fiddly things like mantle-clocks. Anduin-Hobbits, with Ages more experience than their otherworld-cousins, had these and more.

Hobbits have no Dwarven strength, no Mannish height, no Elvish wisdom born of centuries. But Hobbits are, in any world and every world, clever.

In this world, Hobbits tunneled out Anduin, crafting smials and more, carving out hiding places and homes and (eventually) an nation as large and populous as the Greenwood (or more so) just beneath the surface, in order to leave the Valley above for their farms and gardens. They taught themselves to bottle lightning and generate it themselves, to light their homes and power their machines. They created machines to ease their work, in farming, weaving, sewing, digging, cooking, and communicating.

They had no machines for transport, however, besides lifts to the surface. Why would they want to spend less time walking in the sunlight?

And they kept their mathoms to themselves. Why should they not, after all? Elves were so wise, Men so canny, and Dwarves (most of all, Dwarves, the Children of Aulë, the Smith) so strong and proud, they must have such things themselves. When Hobbits had their infrequent dealings with the other races, they took the absence of machine-made fabric, pocket-watches, and similar conveniences as evidence that the other races chose to keep their devices secret, for Dwarves were well-known for their secrecy, and who could understand the ways of Tall Folk?

That Hobbits were the only race prosperous, peaceful, and generous enough to invent such things without any quarrels or ill will never occurred to them.

That the other races would use such inventions to create nasty, horrible weapons did, at least as far as Goblins were concerned.

Hobbits understood Goblins well. Without being driven from Anduin, they remembered Ages past. They remembered how their sons and daughters had been betrayed by Dwarves and Men and taken by Sauron’s forces at the beginning of the Second Age. The braver of them had followed later, had seen how Sauron turned his quarry into shadows of their former selves, used their cleverness to build his fortress, Barad-dûr.

It was this that led them to retreat underground, to hide from all, not only their enemies. It was an Age before they allowed any to view them again, though not by choice.

Erebor never accumulated the wealth to call a dragon, but the Ered Luin did, some eighty years later than the otherworld-Erebor had. The exodus was short-lived, but massive. Half a mountain range’s worth of Dwarves stomped their way across the Gladden Pass and into the Valley of Anduin.

The tunnels held.

Half of those who had journeyed to Erebor traveled back the way they’d come, joined by the full forces of Erebor and armed with enough weapons and equipment (and Black Arrows) to slay half a dozen dragons.

The tunnels held, barely.

Once the dragon was slain, the Ereborian army came, again, through the Gladden pass and through the Valley.

And the tunnels gave in.

The Anduin-Hobbits had evacuated the local population north after the second round of Dwarves passed overhead, and blocked off the tunnels in hopes of convincing those who found them—if they were found—that they were isolated, ancient, and abandoned.

But Dwarves are not so easy to fool as Men.

The forces returned to Erebor after only a short inspection of the tunnels, but smaller groups set out for Anduin within weeks. The abandoned tunnels were scrutinized and traced to the blockage, which was quickly determined to be both superficial and artificial. A Dwarven force so close to the boundaries of Lothlórien, Riddermark—also called Rohan—and the Greenwood drew attention to the inspection, and so representatives of all three known races of Middle-Earth were present when the fourth was exposed for the first time in nearly two Ages.

Explanations were exchanged, ultimatums made, and the Dwarves, Elves, and Men swore to keep all knowledge of the Hobbits’ existence a grave secret; had Prince Thorin of Erebor not been among those present, even the royal family would have remained entirely unaware.

For a time, the Hobbits of Anduin were as safe in being known as they had been for so long in being unknown.

And then King Folcwine of Riddermark passed away. His eldest sons had been among the witnesses of the Discovery, but fell in battle some thirty years later, and Folcwine had no choice but to pass his throne to his youngest son, Fengel. Even so, he did not tell his son of Hobbits’ existence, but wrote a full account for his son to read on his ascension to the throne. Folcwine had hoped that the burden of ruling a nation would cool Fengel’s greed and soften him to the Hobbits’ plight.

But in the Third Age 2903, at the age of thirty-three, Fengel took the throne, read the account, and had no thought but of the wealth these diggers could be hiding. Fengel mobilized the forces of Riddermark, gaining the attention of the Orcs of the Misty Mountains, and led a raid on the unsuspecting Hobbits.

Though the Men did not collaborate with the Orcs, their separate attacks formed a two-pronged assault that the Anduin-Hobbits had no hope of resisting. The alarm was raised and word was sent to their Elvish and Dwarvish allies, but even the Greenwood was unable to reach the Valley before more than half of the population had been slaughtered.

Less than one-third survived both the raids and the following—admittedly short-lived—war.

The Orcs were decimated, due largely to the collaboration of Dwarves and Elves for the first time in millennia, in particular one prince of Erebor and one Guard-Captain of the Woodland Realm. What few Orcs remained were driven to cower in Moria, then, with the aid of the White Council, routed entirely, and Durin’s Bane with them. Crown Prince Thorin of Erebor led a force to Moria to begin the reconstruction, with the support of his wife and son, as king of Khazad-dûm. This left his sister, now Crown Princess, as sole heir to Erebor’s crown, should she not defer it to her eldest son.

Prince Frerin had perished in the war, in defense of a group of Fauntlings. By Dwarven law—and Hobbit practice—this left the families of said Fauntlings in debt to the family of the deceased. Most paid their debt by joining King Thorin in healing Khazad-dûm. Some, however, chose to pay in tribute, sending it to whichever sibling had the greater need.

Their decision was largely due to a widespread refusal to budge from the Valley, their sanctuary, and venture into the outer world. This was not to be belittled, as many Hobbits had suffered grievously at the hands of the Orcs, and their Dwarvish allies vehemently defended their right to shelter where they wished.

However, some Hobbits had little choice.

One Hobbit had none.

Bel stared blankly at the clouds overhead. It had been just past Elevensies when she’d come up to the field. It was nearly sunset now. And still, her gut roiled.

It was already done. Everything was arranged. Still, she wished it was all just a dream. That she would wake up and find herself laying in the fields by the Mirrormere, and Nyr would be beside her, and everything would just be the way it was a year earlier.

She knew better than to put much stock in wishes.

“Bel!”

The grass dragged at her curls as she looked toward her father’s voice. She didn’t answer; he was already walking straight for her.

There was a letter in his hand.

Gut clenching, she looked back up at the clouds. This was going to be unpleasant.

“What have you done?”

She swallowed thickly before answering. “Secured more protection for the Valley.”

“Bel—” He broke off, breathing heavily; after a few moments of tightly-controlled stillness, he sat beside her. “There was no need for you to go to these lengths.”

“You know there was.”

“We’re safe!”

At that, she did meet his eyes, her thumb digging in to the side of her index finger. “Then why has the Council been considering expanding the Bounders’ ranks?”

He opened his mouth to argue, but after an impotent moment, closed it again, looking away.

Her eyes fell to the letter in his hand; now that he was closer, she could see that it was a telegraph’s printout. “They’ve accepted, then.”

A bitter, scoffing laugh left him, his fist clenching on the paper. “Eagerly. They didn’t even dispute your terms.”

“Our terms.”

“I don’t remember being consulted!”

“I knew you and Mama would try to stop me.” She half-shrugged, a tiny twitch of her shoulders. There was a cloud overhead that looked like a swan. “The other councillors helped me phrase them.”

A long, slow breath left him. Inhaling shakily, he rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “You won’t even consider staying here?” At the bleak, hopeless tone, her eyes burned, her breath shaking as much as his. “You could be happy here. You could find a nice lad—”

“Don’t.” The word hung in the air, heavy and over-loud, for several moments. In the quiet, she could hear distant birdsong; the swan overhead was changing, the wind rearranging its features. “I can’t stay here.”

She’d meant it to sound strong, definite, like Thorin when he gave a speech, but it came out as a bare whisper. It came out as a plea. Abruptly angry with herself, she scrubbed her hand roughly over her face. “I can’t. And don’t say anything about finding someone, that’s already taken care of.”

Exasperated, he gestured broadly, the paper fluttering in his hand. “Do you even know who it is?”

“What does it matter?” He stilled at the quiet words; she hated how lifeless she sounded, but she couldn’t muster the energy to pretend she was anything else. She felt lifeless. She didn’t even have an appetite anymore, let alone the will to laugh or dance or do anything but what was necessary. This was necessary. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she watched as the former swan flipped directions, its wings turning to legs, its head to a tail. “Have they chosen someone?”

A laugh caught in his throat, coming out more like a sob. “The eldest prince.”

“Frerin’s nephew.” The words had come unbidden, had left her in a whisper. She still remembered that day. There were stretches where she saw it every time she closed her eyes, even a quarter-century later.

“You’ll be well taken care of, at least.”

She turned her head to look properly at him; he sounded old, far past his years. He looked it, eyes shining in the fading sunlight, but bone-dry. Heart aching, she pushed herself upright and wrapped an arm around him, laying her head on his shoulder.

His arm came around her as he released a guttering breath. “There’s no going back now.”

“No,” she agreed, her eyes trailing up until they found the wolf bounding away from the swan’s flight. “There isn’t.”

Fíli leaned his elbows on the balustrade, watching traffic come through the gates. There was more lately, now that Bard was old enough to take some of his father’s duties; he was fast proving himself a more talented leader than Sigurd had ever been.

Especially now he was married.

“I go on a quick little trip to the Woodland Realm and you get yourself engaged,” Kíli drawled; a moment later, he took a position beside Fíli, playfully knocking his arm against Fíli’s as he did. “Honestly, next time I’ll come back and you’ll be king.”

Fíli snorted softly, unable to muster more of a laugh.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kíli frown and look more carefully at him. “So you haven’t lost your mind completely. I wondered.” When Fíli didn’t respond, Kíli smothered a growl— not very well. “Seriously, Fee, a Hobbit? Not just a Hobbit, an arranged marriage? Amad made sure we wouldn’t ha—”

“That was when we were Thorin’s heirs,” Fíli snapped, “things are different now. Besides, Thorin speaks highly of this girl.”

Kíli frowned. “Thorin knows her?”

Remembering the few sentences Thorin had given to her—almost as many as he usually spent speaking of his family, verbose as he was—Fíli nodded. “She was one of the Hobbits that came to Khazad-dûm over the last few years. Sounds like quite the fighter, for a Hobbit.”

Kíli’s brow nearly rose past his hairline. “A fighter?”

Grinning crookedly despite himself, Fíli clarified, “Verbally. Fritha said she and Thorin would get in shouting matches.”

A startled laugh burst from Kíli, which Fíli joined, though only with a chuckle. Thorin might have been their uncle, but even they were intimidated when he was properly angry. And here was a Hobbit girl who was willing to get in his face and give it back to him.

As Kíli wound down, Fíli’s smile slipped away. The horizon over the Woodland Realm—even with the forest as a distant green blur—seemed to loom.

Catching his mood as usual, Kíli sobered. “Are you sure about this?”

Fíli hesitated, then nodded once. “She’s not a wilting flower, at least according to Thorin; she’s used to living with Dwarves, or at least around us; the Valley is getting a permanent guard out of this; and we’re paying off the last of our debt.” When Kíli furrowed his brow at him, Fíli added, “One of the families on the council that sent the initial request is the family of the last of the debtors.”

That, Kíli understood. “I guess that’s a fair trade. Life for a life and all that.”

“And a trade that’ll bring a closer relationship between our Races, hopefully.”

Kíli gave him a skeptical look for that, but didn’t argue. He and Fíli had both fought in the War for the Valley—despite both of them being too young by half—and he knew that the Hobbits’ defenselessness had weighed far more heavily on Fíli. Kíli had seen the remains of a paradise he’d be glad to summer in, once it recovered.

Fíli had seen a land of farmers and children that couldn’t stand a chance against the other Races.

At least this way, they could make sure that there would never be another Valley War. There would be no more deaths like Frerin’s. No more deaths like the ones Men’s greed had wrought.

And Elves called Dwarves greedy.

Shaking his head, Fíli forced himself to focus. “Thorin and Fritha both said that she’s clever, and able to shout an entire room of Dwarves out of a fight.”

Kíli’s brows raised, this time with grudging respect. “At least she won’t be a figurehead.”

Fíli nodded; half the reason he’d been so relieved Dís had gotten Thrain to agree neither of them would be forced into an arranged marriage was that he wanted a queen—if he was ever king, which, Eru willing, he wouldn’t be—who’d help bear the load. Even after a lifetime of training, he still wasn’t sure he was ready to be king. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to be. But if that were the case, his son—or daughter—would take the throne instead, and it was almost more important to have a capable wife in that case. He knew that he’d been trained as well as he could to take the throne. It would be up to him and his wife to make sure their child was as well prepared.

The thought of children was a strange one, and he shook it off. “So, what’s the latest gossip? I know you’re dying to tell me.”

Kíli grinned and humored him, though Fíli didn’t think for a second that he’d forgotten the subject at hand.

But for now, they laughed at stories of drunken guards and rumors of Orcs cursed into squirrels, and watched the carts and merchants ride in and out of their mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More info will be forthcoming on the changes to canon, but it's going to be a little piecemeal; I hate infodumps. Anyway, I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this; I have enough written that I can do an update every few days for a couple weeks, maybe, but after that it's just going to be as it comes to me.  
> Also, this is heavily influenced by the Swan Princess movie (or at least the soundtrack), since I grew up with it. It's not going to be fully Swan Lake or the Swan Princess, since a big part of why I wanted to write this was because I wanted to write a married couple settling into their marriage. Seriously, you think you guys are suffering from Belda and Kíli's slow-burn romance? I know exactly how their entire life together is going to go, and I can't write the fun stuff yet. DX  
> Mångata updates will not be slowing until I post the rest that I have ready to post; I have a few chapters of part ii finished, but not enough for me to start posting those as soon as I finish posting part i. I'm still working on those chapters, though, so hopefully it won't be long between part i and ii.  
> Anyway, let me know if you have suggestions for the summary, tell me if you have a trope you'd like to see, and I'll see if I can fit it in. Увидимся!  
> (Also, let me know if you want me to go with the Mångata format of putting the name of the PoV character for the section at the top. For this, I'm going to try and keep it clear, but if you like it better like I have it in Mångata, I can change that pretty easily.)


	2. Of an Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, she's in Erebor now...

Bel watched the river flow past out the window of the carriage, and wished she was walking. She’d tried to persuade her escort, but they’d insisted that it would slow them down; she’d had to satisfy herself with stretching her legs at the midday break, and when they made and broke camp, of course.

It was odd, to be around Dwarves again. In Khazad-dûm, she hadn’t gone a day without talking to one, if only to yell at them when they nearly stepped on her. For a time— But then she’d had to return to the Valley, and the few months she’d been there before leaving again had been enough to re-accustom her to being around people largely smaller than her. Now she was small again, and where she’d always felt precious before, now she just felt— well, small.

A jolt in the road was enough that she had to steady herself against the wall of the carriage, and she realized she was gripping her locket. Only through her top, but even so. Jaw clenched, she forced herself to release it, smoothing down her bodice so that it couldn’t be seen.

But even doing so, her breath shook. She’d been trying not to think of him, but—

It should have been Nyr she was marrying. No matter how she tried to avoid it, it was true.

Cursing herself and her heart—though there wasn’t much more she could do that hadn’t already been done—she turned her attention outside the window again. The landscape was blurry, but still, it was better than dwelling on wishes.

They never came true.

As Erebor’s gates came into view, she wiped her eyes and steadied her breathing. She’d spent nearly an hour making sure she was presentable that morning. It wouldn’t do to give the wrong impression now.

Fíli stood at his mother’s right, Kíli on his other side. The entrance to the mountain had been closed, temporarily, after they’d received confirmation—via Raven—that she would be arriving that afternoon. Normally, he and his immediate family would be waiting with Thrain in the throne room, and Dwalin or Gloin or another Lord of Erebor would escort her to be officially received.

But seeing as this was his soon-to-be wife arriving, it had been decided that he and her soon-to-be in-laws should be there when she arrived.

When the guards called for the gate to be opened, he had to remind himself to breathe normally; he heard his adad let out a quick breath from Dís’ other side. The carriage neared slowly, more slowly than he thought might have been necessary. Though, Hobbits were more delicate generally, so it could simply be that the driver was being cautious.

As was customary when greeting foreign nobility—as far as Hobbits had nobility—two columns of guards were arranged to form a pathway from where the carriage was stopping to where Fíli and his family waited. The point was to make a show of strength from the first moment, as the foreign dignitary, whoever they might be and however many guards of their own they would have, would have to walk past a good hundred Ereborian guards, in full armor and regalia. The point was to stun the visitor.

When the carriage door opened and the Lady herself stepped out, Fíli was sure she’d accomplished just the opposite.

She was a good head shorter than him, with rich, light brown curls that tumbled down to her elbows, skin as dark as any of the Hobbit farmers he remembered, and plump. But she was beautiful, enough so that he’d nearly swallowed his tongue on seeing her, and he could see movement in the corners of his eyes, as the guards in formation tried and failed to keep from gawking at her. Part of the reason might have simply been her dress— it was sleeveless and strapless, with what looked like a soft corset serving as the bodice and lace sweeping down from either side of her abdomen to frame a skirt that was simple, but that ended at her knees. If it hadn’t been for the scarf she wore around her shoulders, covering her chest somewhat, the dress as a whole would have been borderline indecent.

Her arms caught his eye as she walked closer, bare feet silent on the stone; they weren’t overly large, but they were more defined than he would have expected. She wasn’t a miner, by any means, but she clearly wasn’t afraid to work.

Once she was close enough, she dropped into a proper Dwarven bow; Fíli had to jerk his eyes up from where they’d landed as she bent. Straightening, she glanced over them all before her gaze settled on his amad; her eyes were the same tawny brown as her dress, he realized, both just a hair lighter than her hair.

“Your royal highness.”

Dís inclined her head slightly, more than she would have to anyone but her son’s fiancée. “Lady Cybele. My husband, Prince Consort Sídri,” Cybele half-bowed to him, ducking her head. “My sons, Prince Fíli,” he gave her the same sort of half-bow she’d given his father, though he didn’t look away from her; it was deeper than he was required to give her, but then, so was her bow to Sídri.

Cybele swallowed as she returned the bow, and ducked her head again. He wasn’t sure, but he thought there might have been a bit of color in her cheeks.

“…And Prince Kíli.” She didn’t bow quite as deeply to Kíli, but it was still deeper than she needed to go; he returned the gesture, face blank the way Fíli knew meant he was still evaluating her.

A throat being cleared almost too quietly to hear brought Fíli back to himself. He stepped forward, belatedly realizing that she was just tall enough that he could set his chin on top of her curls without any difficulty. “Lady Cybele, I’m glad to welcome you. Erebor is honored to receive you.”

She inclined her head; it was much harder to keep his eyes anywhere appropriate when he was so close, but he managed to wrench them up before she met his eyes again. “I am honored to be welcomed, your highness, and glad to be here.”

“Fíli.” Blinking, he nearly swallowed his tongue; he hadn’t meant to say that. Still, he couldn’t take it back now, not when she’d clearly heard him, with how her eyes widened. “After all, we’re to be married in a matter of days.”

She nodded, but fortunately for his self-control, didn’t drop her eyes from his. “Then you must call me Bel.”

“Bel?” As nicknames went, it was… strikingly Dwarven.

A smile threatened to break through her reserved expression. “More than a few Dwarves of my acquaintance insisted. Apparently ‘Cybele’ is too Elven of a name to be borne.”

He couldn’t argue that, actually. It seemed he’d let that show in his expression, as her lips twitched into a smile for an instant before she schooled them. Biting back a smile of his own, he offered her his arm. “The king is waiting to receive you.”

She inclined her head as she moved to take his arm, and he had to force his eyes forward. All three of the others were hiding smirks, Kíli more badly than their parents, but they didn’t say anything, just led the way to the throne room.

It left him in a good position to see how many jaws dropped as they passed by.

Bel kept her head high as they walked, mindful of Dwarven sensibilities. Nearly fifteen years living among them, and still, she had to be careful.

They’d think she was a child, without a beard, so she’d dressed as a woman.

They’d think she was fragile—which she was, compared to them—so she’d left her arms fully on display, aware that she was visibly stronger than most Hobbits. After so long having to haul herself up ledges and such built for people with legs twice the length of hers, she had to be; her work wasn’t exactly effortless, either.

They’d think she was proud, which she’d couldn’t and wouldn’t disprove, so she would hold to their customs, for the most part.

She was going to be here for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t sacrifice everything that made her herself, but neither would she reject everything Dwarven.

Not that that was an option. It had never even been a consideration; she was almost more accustomed to life among Dwarves than Hobbits, anymore. Almost more accustomed to looking up and seeing stone rather than sky.

Though, she had to admit that Erebor was beautiful. Not quite so much as Khazad-dûm, it didn’t have the sweeping, soaring, elegant flow that every line of Khazad-dûm boasted, but there was something rugged about it, something more natural. It wasn’t what she was used to, and it wasn’t really in the same category, but she could grow to love it, she thought.

How far did that reach, she wondered. Even in the privacy of her own thoughts, she couldn’t deny the parallel. Fíli didn’t have Nyr’s elegance or subtlety—she hadn’t let on that she’d seen him ogling, but he hadn’t hidden it well—but he was more open.

Even thinking that much brought a sharp ache to her heart, heat building behind her eyes. Controlling her breathing, she wrenched her thoughts back to the matter at hand.

Thorin was an infuriating, bull-headed child.

What would his father be like?

The throne room was a masterwork— even without knowing much of stonework, she could recognize that. The throne was suspended in the heart of a vast cavern; three pathways served as bridges between it and the mountain, and she could hear commotion below, likely a market, with the din of haggling over an undercurrent of hammers and various animals. It would be far too far below for any threat to arise, of that she was sure, even without looking for herself.

She couldn’t. Not with the king’s eyes on her.

The princess royal, prince consort, and Prince Kíli preceded them toward the throne, but as the king was standing, a few steps above their level, he was clearly visible, and clearly watching her closely. Carefully, she kept her nerves from showing, though the trick was to balance it. Too reserved and they’d call her an Elf. Not reserved enough and they’d call her childish.

Fíli’s arm moved a fraction closer in, just far enough that her knuckles brushed his tunic; she might have thought it was an accident, if it weren’t for the sympathetic look in his eye when she looked over.

Turning back to face the king, she lifted her chin a bit higher as they reached the dais, the other royals moving to stand at his right—his daughter and her husband—and left—Prince Kíli—beside four other Dwarves, not dressed quite so finely as the royals. Fíli stayed beside her, even after she released his arm in order to bow properly, one arm bent in front of her stomach, the other behind her back.

She bowed low, lower than she had to Princess Royal Dís, and held the bow for a few beats longer. “Your Majesty.”

Smoothly, she straightened; Men held that supplicants should remain as they were until their monarch gave them leave to rise, she knew, but Dwarves were too proud by half to tolerate that, and doing anything but what a Dwarf would do would make her seem a fool.

The king watched her through hard, narrow eyes and didn’t speak. Thinking of Thorin and his ridiculous drama, she returned the king’s gaze and waited.

After nearly a minute, the king cracked a smile. “Well, you aren’t as impertinent as my son led me to believe.”

She quirked a brow, biting her tongue against a curse on Thorin’s entire bloody bloodline.

He looked her over, a frown deepening the lines of his face and making him look closer to his age than Dwarves typically did. “Just as small, though.”

Before she could stop herself, she sniped, “I can’t imagine what you’d think of a Fauntling, then.” Thorin’s fault, it was all Thorin’s bloody fault.

His brows shot up; a tense moment later, he barked out a laugh. The other royals were staring at her, beards twitching; one of the other Dwarves, a Dam in a dress, was covering her mouth, shoulders shaking. “There’s the spirit that won my son over. Tell me, Lady Cybele, did you insult him the day you met, or did you wait for a few hours?”

With a question like that, she couldn’t very well not answer. “I cannot remember any insult I have ever offered King Thorin. Just some very accurate observations.”

A tiny, hastily-smothered snort came from Fíli; King Thrain laughed again, and stepped down to the dais itself. He extended a hand toward her; with no few qualms, she took it, surprised when he shook it in the manner of Men. “You are welcome to Erebor, Lady Cybele.”

Automatically, she bobbed a small curtsey. “I am glad to be welcomed.”

As she straightened, she caught a glimpse of a look, cutting in its perceptiveness and cool in its appraisal, that vanished a moment later. So not all of Thorin’s family were as blatant as he and his nephew were, then.

Releasing her hand, he gestured toward the Dam and the other three men. “Lord Gloin,” the Dwarf standing closest to the Dam, with red hair and beard like a bush, inclined his head to her; she bowed shallowly, “Lord Dori,” the next was a Dwarf with silver hair, carefully styled, and clothes nearly as fine as the royals, for all that she could tell they hadn’t been so expensive as Lord Gloin’s, “and Lord Balin,” this was a Dwarf with a long white beard, and eyes as sharp as they were kind. She bowed to both men as she had to Lord Gloin.

“Lady Gimli.” The Dam stepped forward, bowing shallowly; Bel returned it. “Lady Gimli will be assisting you in your preparations before the wedding. Lord Dori is the head of the Tailor’s Guild, and will be responsible for your apparel. Lord Balin is the head of the Scribemasters’ Guild, and will prepare you for the ceremony.”

Gloin’s inclusion in the group might have been odd, given that he seemed to have little role to play, but seeing the resemblance between he and Lady Gimli—and how little beard she had yet—Bel didn’t question it. She bowed again, recognizing the end to the conversation. “I am grateful for the assistance, Sire, my Lords, my Lady.”

The Lady stepped forward as the king took his throne, and Fíli joined his brother. “I’m very glad to meet you, Lady Cybele.”

There was a restrained enthusiasm about her, and Bel hid a smile. “I’m glad to meet you, too, Lady Gimli.”

Lord Balin stepped forward. “I think we ought to begin preparations, don’t you?”

She inclined her head, accepting Lady Gimli’s arm when she held it out; Fíli moved to stand with his brother as Bel’s group began herding her toward the exit. “What do you think of the mountain? So far, I mean— although you haven’t been here long, so you can’t have seen much yet, but you will, I know, and then you must tell me what you think! What is the Valley like? Is it all green? Is it always green? Lothlorien is never bare, did you know that? Even in winter! Have you ever met an Elf? Are they as tall as people say? I heard that there aren’t any short Elves. Are you short for a Hobbit? I love your dress, by the by, it’s so much more daring than mine—”

As the Lady chattered beside her, Bel couldn’t hide a smile; she’d thought she looked young for a Dwarf, but clearly she’d underestimated how young she really was. She didn’t even seem out of her Tweens yet.

Still, she was sweet, and with a father as protective as Lord Gloin seemed to be, she wouldn’t begrudge her a bit of silliness.

She glanced back when they reached the entrance of the throne room, and a chill raced up her spine to see that Fíli was watching her.

He was out of sight a moment later, but she couldn’t quite put him out of her mind. Not when the rest of the day was spent learning the steps of a Dwarven wedding, and especially not when Lord Dori was clucking over the wrinkles in her wedding gown and Lady Gimli was cooing over how ‘quaint’ it was.

“It’s too plain.”

Bel opened her mouth to upbraid Lord Dori for insulting her family’s work, but Lord Balin cut in smoothly, “To a Dwarf’s eye, it marks you as lacking in anything material.”

And she knew how important status was to Dwarves. Sighing, she looked over the dress. “What do you suggest?”

Lord Dori looked oddly pleased for a moment, then sobered, gesturing in graceful sweeps along the skirts. “Gems attached to a net of lace, sparse in the front and thicker as the net moves to the back, meeting in a river at the back and flowing down the train. The bodice, I would leave largely untouched, but for some small diamonds to accentuate the lace, and perhaps embroidery—with gold thread—to provide some color.”

The way he described it, it did sound lovely, but she still grimaced. “It sounds heavy. I’m not sure I’d be able to walk further than a few paces.”

After a moment’s thought, he offered, “The lace for the skirt will be easily prepared; we could attach it temporarily and adjust it after your fitting.”

Slowly, she nodded. “That sounds reasonable.” She raised a brow at Lord Balin. “Would that be satisfactory?”

He considered the question for a moment. “Do you intend to wear any jewelry?”

Wincing, she shook her head. “Hobbits typically don’t.” She did, but… Well, none of it was what she would want to wear to her wedding. Not to Fíli.

He nodded, unsurprised. “Then I would advise you to allow as much ornament on your gown as you can bear. And perhaps Lady Gimli could lend you some ornaments for your hair.”

Gimli lit up; after less than a day of knowing her, Bel already knew that the Dam had an appreciation for beauty some Elves couldn’t match. “Oh, you must borrow some! I have some pins that would be so lovely on you, and a few nets that would match the dress! Maybe the emerald? No, the amber—”

Bel bit her tongue against a laugh; glancing to Lord Balin, she was taken aback when he smirked conspiratorially at her before moving away to consult with Lord Dori.

Fíli wasn’t sure, not from that distance, but he thought Bel looked back at him just before they left the throne room entirely.

As soon as they had, Thrain relaxed his posture, leaning on one armrest as he smoothed the hair around his mouth, his habit when he thought. “That girl could be trouble.”

Dís sighed, an exasperated note in it. “One conversation does not mean we know her, Adad. Thorin gave her the highest recommendation.”

“And how well did he know her?”

A pang struck Fíli, unexpected and all the sharper for that. “Are you thinking of rejecting the alliance after all?”

But Thrain waved a dismissive hand. “It’s too late for that even if I wanted to. We’ll keep a close eye on her, that’s all.”

Kíli snickered. “Fíli especially.”

Fíli glared at him, but he only smirked more widely. “Thorin isn’t someone to trust blindly. And Fritha reads people better than anyone alive.” Hence why she’d married Thorin at all; he wasn’t the most diplomatic of Dwarves. Or the most tactful. Or nice.

Thrain nodded slowly. “True enough. Be cautious how much you tell her, Fíli.”

Dís growled, stalking around to her sons. “He’ll be married to her, Adad, there is a certain amount of talking involved.”

Thrain glared at her; she glared back. “I’m not talking about pleasantries and chit-chat, I’m talking about our secrets, and Erebor’s security.”

Sídri came around to stand with Dís, an apologetic grimace pulling at his beard. “As much as I wish I wasn’t saying this, Thrain has a point.” Thrain snorted; they’d barely agreed on anything since Thrain allowed the marriage. “She seems trustworthy, and Eru willing, she is, but until we’re certain of that, be cautious.”

“But,” Dís glared at both men, “that doesn’t mean you ought to treat the girl as an intruder. Trust has to be given to be earned, and Thorin’s word earns her enough for day-to-day business, I should think.”

Neither man argued that, and she cupped Fíli’s cheeks, leaning her forehead against his. He returned the pressure, throat tight. “Be wise, love. Don’t be afraid, don’t be overeager. Be wise, and trust yourself.”

It was a variation on what they’d all been telling him for months, since the arrangement was finalized, but even so, his eyes burned. “I will, Amad.”

With a final, gentle knock against his forehead, she released him, shooing him off. “Go on, go get plastered, I know Kíli’s dying to take you.”

Grinning, Kíli shook his head. “Nah, the bachelor party isn't until tomorrow afternoon.”

Rolling his eyes, Fíli punched his brother in the arm and moved for the exit. “Which is why we’re going hunting today; I want you as subdued as possible during the ceremony.”

Kíli caught up in a few long strides, a pout on his face Fíli honestly couldn’t tell was feigned, though it couldn’t be real, that was ridiculous. “What, you think I’ll start a brawl during the vows or something?”

“Or something,” Fíli answered dryly.

Kíli’s pout disappeared far too quickly for it to have been genuine, and he shrugged. “Fine, but you know that means I’ll just start something during the feast afterwards.”

“I’m counting on it.”

After a moment, Kíli practically choked on a laugh. “You— Oh, Mahal, you’re brilliant.”

Fíli just grinned at him, a bit too viciously, but with half his attention still on his fiancée’s dress, her curls, and most of all, her curves and how many men had been ogling her on the way from the gates, he couldn’t help it. She was his wife—or would be in a couple days—and he wasn’t about to let anyone, especially some of the lecherous prats his age, see her any way but fully clothed.

If avoiding the bedding ceremony took unleashing his brother on an unsuspecting wedding party, then so be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baby steps. Actually, it really isn't; next chapter's the wedding and then the actual plot gets started pretty quickly after that. Although a couple of the lesser plots are already in progress, did you notice?  
> Ok, full disclosure, I may or may not have been dragging my feet on posting the next chapter because I hit a block on chapter-- I don't know, like six or something. And then I was writing yesterday and I got like 6k words done in an afternoon. And now I really really really want to post *that* chapter, but I can't do that until I post the chapters before it, so here you go.  
> In case you can't tell, updates will be sporadic. Enjoy!


	3. Of a Ceremony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weddings and Kissing and Vows, Oh My!

Staring at her reflection, Bel idly toyed with the fall of the lace. There wasn’t much she could do, since it would move as she walked down the aisle, and it was heavy enough that it would do as it wished anyway, but even so. It helped.

The previous day had been so full of lessons and lectures and fittings that she’d barely had time to eat, let alone to talk to Fíli or go outside. She’d gone through so many rehearsals and recitations she could probably say her vows in her sleep, but at least they’d been willing to incorporate some Hobbit traditions. Not many, but enough that it would feel more real, to her.

This was all so fast. Yesterday she’d been in Khazad-dûm, that morning she’d been in the Valley, and now she was getting married. Tomorrow, who knew? She’d probably be sailing west.

But she’d chosen this. Even as her gut knotted, she knew that it was the right path. She was nervous, dreading being the center of attention—she’d probably trip and fall right on her face—but not the future.

Well, that was only partially right. She wasn’t dreading the distant, hypothetical future where she was settled and content despite everything that had gone wrong in the last year.

She was a bit dreading the looming, very real, very immediate future where she was married to a man she didn’t know at all in a kingdom she didn’t know at all.

She was going to be at loose ends for months, she just knew it. But Thorin had spoken highly of Fíli, as had Fritha, and Dwalin and Nori, and he did seem to be a good man. Gimli had been all too happy to chatter about the prince—her cousin, as it turned out—and Bel had learned quite a lot. A bit more than she wanted to know, in some cases, but at least now she knew she wasn’t snatching him from a sweetheart.

The thought ached, and she shook it away, focusing again on her reflection. Gimli had lent her enough jewelry to open a small shop, including bracelets for both arms, both upper and lower. Dwarves didn’t include bouquets as part of the ceremony, but once Bel had explained, Balin contacted a florist in Dale and now a cluster of yellow roses sat in a vase beside the mirror. All he’d had ready, apparently.

Still, part of her wanted to see it as a good omen. Red roses would have felt like she was betraying Nyr. But yellow—friendship—that was a good promise, too. Friendship would get them through the start, and then…

Her hand rose to her bodice, but she forced it down again. Her locket was in one of her trunks, where she’d hidden it that morning. She wouldn’t be able to wear it under her wedding gown, and possibly not for some time. Maybe she’d tell Fíli everything one day. Maybe she wouldn’t. But either way, she wouldn’t risk beginning her life in Erebor on the heels of the scandal of wearing a lock of another man’s hair around her neck.

A knock on the door startled her, but it was only Gimli, who slipped in without waiting for an answer. “It’s time.”

Throat closed off, Bel only nodded, reaching up to pull down her veil.

“Oh, careful!” Gimli rushed forward, and Bel leaned down a bit to make it easier on her. Granted, Gimli was taller than her, but still. Lowering it gently, Gimli took care with how it fell, adjusting how it sat over her curls. “There. You look beautiful, Lady Cybele, really you do.”

“Bel.” She hadn’t meant to say that, but she did mean it. “Please call me Bel.”

It was a bit hard to see through the veil, but Bel thought Gimli’s eyes watered. “Oh! Then I’m Gimli, just Gimli.”

Smiling despite her nerves, Bel nodded. “I think you may have to lead me there; I can’t remember the way at all.”

Gimli grinned, broadly enough that Bel could have seen it through ten veils. “Of course! And— Bel?”

She sounded abruptly hesitant; even as she took the younger—in maturity if not in years—girl’s hand, Bel fought a frown. “Yes?”

But Gimli only let loose a shaky breath, squeezing Bel’s hand. “I am so glad it’s you. I’m glad you’ll be my cousin soon.”

Eyes burning, Bel grinned at her, nerves all but erased by the glow Gimli’s words brought. “I’m glad you’ll be my cousin. I’ve some truly horrid relatives; I much prefer you.”

A startled laugh burst from Gimli, and she wiped her eyes. “Oh, you’ve no idea. Not our family, but some of the lords and ladies our age in the mountain.”

Wryly, Bel guessed, “Prats and sycophants?”

“Dogs and shrews,” Gimli corrected; Bel nearly fell over, startled and cackling. “You’ll see. Not everyone’s like that, though, just enough to be annoying.”

Still snickering, Bel swung their hands toward the door. “I’ll feel right at home, then. You’ve just described every township in the Valley.”

Grinning, Gimli took the lead, holding the door open for her. “Good. Maybe you’ll put them in their place.”

“No promises.”

Gimli only laughed at the dry response, and they walked in companionable silence. It wasn’t far to the wedding chamber.

Just far enough for her stomach to knot itself in circles. Again.

Fíli stared at the table behind the priest, ignoring the chatter behind him. There was a vase on the table. Why was that there? The chatter crested, and he tensed for a moment. He wouldn’t turn and look. He wouldn’t.

“Maybe she wandered into a mineshaft.”

He wouldn’t look, and he wouldn’t cause a scene.

“Maybe she made a run for it.”

And he wouldn’t sucker punch his brother.

“Maybe she heard about your morning breath and decided being an old maid is a better option.”

Jaw clenched, Fíli screwed his eyes shut, careful not to move a muscle otherwise. “Kili. Shut. up.”

“I’m just fulfilling my duties as your groomsman.” He sounded far too bloody cheerful for someone who’d drunk as much as he had the night before. Still, he might have been being quiet for appearance and privacy’s sake, or for his migraine’s.

Opening his eyes, Fíli released a slow, controlled breath, and focused on not maiming his brother on his wedding day. He still needed him, anyway. “That, you can do at the reception. Got a plan?”

“Who needs a plan? There’ll be ale and wine enough to drown an Elf; all I’ll need to do is point a couple minor lords at each other and they’ll do all the work for me.”

Despite himself, Fíli smirked. “Just tell Gloin someone insulted Gimli.”

“Yeah, except that might actually be true. Harder to let bygones be bygones that way.”

He had a point. Gimli was Kíli’s favorite cousin, and Fíli’s second favorite after Ori, but there was no denying she was a little… odd. It didn’t mean the people who sneered at her were right, but it was harder to argue with them when they were going off of reality. Biased, bigoted, blind reality, but reality nonetheless.

A murmur swept through the crowd behind him, and Fíli tensed. Five more minutes and everything would be completely different. For a mad moment, he thought of halting the ceremony and begging another day or two to prepare himself for how much his life was going to change, but it was a bit late for that. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he forced himself to lose some of his tension. Not all, but if he could relax at will, he wouldn’t be so nervous.

“Fee…”He glanced at Kíli, frowning to see the gobsmacked look on his face. Slowly, Kíli met his eyes, and Fíli turned the other way to look for himself.

His breath rushed out of him in a—thankfully quiet—rush. She’d been beautiful getting out of the carriage, but coming slowly down the aisle, she was gorgeous. The gems on her skirt shimmered as the torchlight swept over her, a galaxy of blues and greens and amber-gold, spread over gold-trimmed lace, in turn spread over a full white skirt that didn’t quite hide her feet.

Her bodice was higher—for the sake of his public reputation, he thanked Eru for that—but still sleeveless, lace extending past where the solid fabric stopped, and stretching from the top of her bust all the way to her shoulders. That was gold-trimmed, too, and he thought there might have been gems there, too, but if there were, they weren’t colored, nearly disappearing into both lace and fabric, both the same pure white as the skirt.

Granted, he couldn’t see some of her bodice, as she held a generous bunch of yellow flowers in her hands. Bracelets covered her arms so thickly she almost may as well have been wearing sleeves, and he recognized a few he’d given Gimli over the years. He recognized the pins in her hair, too, though there weren’t many of those, not nearly enough to fully restrain her curls. They still tumbled down her back, but not so much at the sides, and a slight shimmer was all that he could see of the nets Gimli had used for that.

He couldn’t see her face, not with the veil hanging, golden, nearly to her shoulders, but for a moment, he wanted to so badly it ached. He wanted to see her eyes, to see if she was as nervous as he was, to see if she thought as well of him as he did of her.

She came to a graceful stop beside him, and he forced his eyes forward, to the priest. He smiled at them both, eyes twinkling with some private joke, and addressed the entire room. “May Mahal smile on this union, freely entered and freely sealed. Should any Dwarf keep hidden why this bride and groom should not be lawfully and rightly wed in the sight of Eru, Mahal, and Ukhjamusedêz, let him be forever cursed.”

He scanned the room, pausing the customary several seconds, then looked between the two of them. “As Mahal wed Kaminzabdûna, so wed may you be. As Eru blessed the Seven Fathers, so blessed may you be. As Ukhjamusedêz provided Durin, so provided may you be. Eru smile on you both and guide you through this life and to the Halls of Waiting.”

He retrieved the crowns from the table behind him, handing one to each of them, taking the flowers from Bel and setting them in the vase. Balin had told Fíli that she wanted to use a few Hobbit customs; he supposed he should have guessed one would be bringing flowers along.

Turning to face her, his breath caught again, his cheeks heating. From this close, he could see a bit of her face, enough to see she was looking at him. She swallowed, eyes flicking down, and he realized she couldn’t easily reach up to set the crown on his head. Smoothly, he bowed his head, eyes firmly on his feet and not her bust.

As she crowned him, she spoke in a practiced, fluid cadence, “May the raindrops fall lightly on your brow, may the soft winds freshen your spirit; may the sunshine brighten your heart, may the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you.” Drawing back, she held his eyes as she finished, “And may Eru enfold us in the mantle of His love.”

He swallowed thickly; that must have been a Hobbit vow, as he’d never heard it before. Still, it wasn’t so different from his. The traditional—Dwarven—response fell easily from his lips. “I am my beloved’s, my beloved is mine.”

As he gave his own vows, he thanked Eru that his was longer than hers, as he had to pull her veil carefully back before he could properly crown her. “May you feel no rain, for I will be a shelter to you. May you feel no cold, for I will be warmth for you. May there be no loneliness in you; though we are two persons, but there is one life before us. May we go to our dwelling place to enter into the days of our togetherness,” crown settled and perfectly suited to her, plain circlet that it was, he drew back, and nearly couldn’t breathe, not looking into her eyes; somehow he managed to finish, voice lower than he meant it to be, “and may our days be good and long together.”

Veil gone, he could see that her eyes were dark, and how she swallowed before answering unsteadily, “I am my beloved’s, my beloved is mine.”

Tradition dictated they seal it with a kiss; Fíli had been ready to break tradition a few minutes prior, for the sake of his nerves and hers, but as she lifted her chin, cheeks a bit darker than only her complexion would explain, he leaned down without a second thought.

Her lips were soft against his; his eyes closed without his quite meaning them to. Cheering drowned out his pulse in his ears; somehow, he’d actually forgotten their audience.

Cheeks hot, he pulled back; she was still flushed, but at least she didn’t look unhappy, just uncomfortable with the crowd. Clearing his throat, he held his arm out to her.

After a moment, she took it, both hands settling at his elbow rather than just the one nearest him. He didn’t mind.

The extra pressure was just enough to bring him back down to earth.

He was married. They were married. He was— and now she was his wife. The priest must have announced them married, but he hadn’t heard it.

He led her out, careful to keep pace with her rather than rush her off her feet, and to the reception hall. “Are you— Did— Well, are you hungry?”

It wasn’t what he really wanted to ask, but his mind wasn’t quite working properly. Still, she smiled wanly and squeezed his arm. “Starving.”

Bel took another bite of roast pork, not really tasting it. The clamor in the room hadn’t gotten any less since the feast began, some hours earlier. Still, she couldn’t hear any individual conversations, just a general din.

Her blood in her ears was louder than any of it.

She hadn’t lied to Fíli, she had been starving. That is, she knew she ought to be starving, after skipping lunch and only snacking at breakfast. And Dwarves didn’t practice any Hobbit meals at all; she was used to that, but still, usually she kept food in her rooms so she could have first breakfast before she joined her friends, and supper after she went to bed, even if she couldn’t manage the other meals.

But her stomach was too tightly twisted for any hunger to make it out.

Kissing in front of other people wasn’t something Hobbits took issue with, though she was a bit more reserved than most after a decade and a half around Dwarves.

But the bedding ceremony Balin and Gimli had described, innocent as Gimli had made it sound, still sent shivers down her spine. Gimli wouldn’t see anything wrong with it; Bel doubted she’d had a cruel thought in her life.

Bel wasn’t so naïve. Not anymore.

Still, she could grit her teeth and bear it. She could. She would. She had to.

And afterwards, it would just be Fíli. The thought was oddly comforting. She might have expected that being alone with her new husband would be the most nerve-wracking part of her wedding day, but he’d been so open the day they met, and even during the wedding itself, it had been so clear how nervous he was, and he’d taken such care of her walking to the feast, and making sure she had all the food she wanted, and now and then—such as now—he looked over and bumped his leg against hers under the table, raising his brows in a silent question: ‘alright?’.

She smiled an affirmative, as she had the last few dozen times they’d had the exchange, and he only looked away after smiling back.

He wasn’t Nyr. But he was kind, he was thoughtful, he wore his heart on his sleeve, and she knew he was an honorable man. Aggravating as Thorin was, she knew honor meant more to him than anything, and she didn’t have any doubt that any close relative of his would share that. Even their kiss— he’d only kissed her after she’d made it clear that she wanted it. That had to bode well.

The kiss itself certainly did. She’d half thought that she’d be comparing him to Nyr all the while, but she hadn’t. He’d kissed her, and the beads on his mustache had hung cool against her skin, and his beard had been like silk, and she hadn’t thought of Nyr even fleetingly until they were halfway down the aisle. That alone had spoken to how much of her focus he’d taken up.

It had hurt, to say those words. ‘I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine’.

It wasn’t true. Her beloved was in Khazad-dûm, and he would never be hers.

But that dream, that wish, was long gone. It was time she buried it. Nyr had been her beloved, but she was a bit past love as a motivation.

She was married. There was only one sort of ‘beloved’ that mattered now, and that was her husband.

He laughed at something Kíli said, a wide, beaming grin making him shine more than his crown, and her cheeks heated. She might have been unlucky in love, but it didn’t seem she would be in marriage. Emotionally, she wasn’t sure she’d ever think of him as she did Nyr.

Physically, she could already tell she wasn’t going to have any problem keeping them separate.

Nyr was closer to her height, and so broad that her hands didn’t meet when she wrapped her arms around them. He was dark, his eyes, his hair, his beard, and almost Hobbitish in his size, in his features. He’d kissed her and she’d felt completely sure that she could bring him home to her father and he would fit right in with her family.

Fíli was tall, though not as tall as the rest of his family, and slimmer, though she could tell he wasn’t a waif; his arms felt as though they were made of stone. Everything about him was golden as wheat at harvest, except his eyes, which only completed the picture by being blue as the sky. But that was all that was like anything or anyone in the Valley; his features were far stronger than his brother’s, more like Thorin’s. More handsome by half than either, though. For a Dwarf. He’d kissed her and she hadn’t thought of her family at all. She’d thought of the room she’d slept in the night before, and she’d felt safe, and she’d wanted to feel his skin under her hands.

She still wanted to feel his skin. Swallowing, she took another bite of pork. It had only been after three years of courting that she’d really had trouble keeping her hands off Nyr.

Less than three days, and she was already fighting not to pull Fíli’s arms around her.

He nudged her leg, and she looked over to see that he was watching her, concern in his frown. For the first time since they’d sat down, he leaned close enough to be heard; her pulse thrummed a bit faster in her ears. She couldn’t hear the words at first, just the rhythm of his voice; he repeated it after a moment, more loudly. “Are you finished eating?”

For a moment, she wanted to deny it, to stay in the hall until everyone was passed out drunk. As much as she wasn’t dreading the wedding night, the thought of how they were getting to it nearly made her sick. Still, she’d decided that she would hold to Dwarven tradition where it was important, and Balin had explained why this was important. Swallowing down bile, she nodded.

But he didn’t call for the bedding ceremony like she expected. He turned to Kíli; a moment later, Kíli slipped away and Fíli leaned toward her again. “Give it a couple more minutes.”

She frowned at him, puzzled, but didn’t try to shout over the din. He sat back and took a sip of wine; she followed suit, mouth dry. The wine was good, at least. Not strong enough to do more than give her a bit of a buzz, but not many Dwarven spirits were, in her experience.

Her stomach settled, somewhat, as they waited for whatever it was he was expecting. It was more than a couple minutes before it happened, but not by much.

A lord a ways down the hall leapt to his feet, shouting something unintelligible at someone a few places down. She had no idea what he was saying—she could make out the words, faintly, but they were slurred beyond recognition—but apparently the people nearer him could, as several also leapt up, joining the argument. Brows creeping up, she watched the tumult spread, people on either side taking one side or the other while their neighbor disagreed, and wasn’t surprised when the two who’d begun it all flew at each other.

She’d seen too many bar fights to be overly concerned for their safety, but she still winced as food began to fly.

A hand covering hers startled her, and Fíli tugged her away from the table, holding a finger to his lips before taking hold of the end of her train. Staying low, they skirted the edge of the room to a side door she’d seen servers carrying dishes in and out of. There wasn’t a kitchen on the other side, which surprised her, but there was a corridor; she could hear pots and pans clattering from a door partway down.

Still holding onto her train, Fíli offered her his arm, a tension she hadn’t really noticed now obvious in its absence. “The royal wing’ll be quieter.”

She took his arm, head still faintly reeling. It wasn’t until they were out of that corridor and walking up a flight of stairs to the royal wing—she assumed—before she could properly process that yes, they had left the feast without incident. “I thought—”

“Hmm?” He looked to her, concern shining through the attentiveness she was beginning to see was habitual for him.

Realizing she was staring at him, she shook her head. “I just— Balin told me about the bedding ceremony.”

One of his brows raised; from the surprise in his voice, she didn’t think it was a deliberate move on his part. “You wanted that?”

“No!” Flushing at the yelp, she held a bit more tightly to his arm. “I just thought— I thought it would be a terrible scandal if it didn’t happen, or something.”

He bit his lip, bobbing his head. “There’ll be some grumbling, and some of the more traditional will try to say that now there’s no way to know whether the marriage was con— that it— that it happened,” he stumbled, thankfully only over his words, not the steps, “but I’ll deal with that. I’m not the first groom to avoid the bedding.”

Knots in her stomach easing away, she brought her other hand up to his arm. “Thank you.”

He smiled at her, eyes crinkled; she felt that in her stomach, too, but that was quite the opposite feeling. “Honestly, I just didn’t want to go through it myself. I’m glad you weren’t looking forward to it, though.”

Despite herself, she smiled back at him; it might not have been a grand romantic gesture or anything, but the honesty was endearing in and of itself. She didn’t want grand gestures, anyway. “Still, thank you. It sounds horrible.”

Wrinkling his nose, he nodded, guiding them confidently through a tangle of forks that left her unsure which way was up. “It’s archaic, it really is. Thorin didn’t put up with it, either, although he wasn’t as subtle.”

Knowing Thorin, she could imagine, but she couldn’t resist asking with a groan, “What did he do?”

Fighting a laugh, Fíli leaned in the same conspiratorial way he had at the feast. “He slung Fritha over his shoulder and just charged out with her.”

A bark of a cackle burst from her, and she leaned her forehead against Fíli’s upper arm as she laughed. Of course he did. Knowing Thorin, she really shouldn’t have expected anything else.

Still laughing weakly, she lifted her head again, realizing they were in a completely different section of the mountain now, in what seemed to be an expansive suite. “The royal wing?”

He nodded. “Your things were already moved up, or they ought to have been.”

She knew that—it had been one of the things Balin had told her the day before—but she nodded as if she hadn’t, nerves teasing at her gut.

She wasn’t opposed to what they were about to do, but she was nervous.

They reached the door, and he held it open for her. Taking a deep breath, she walked in, and the door fell closed behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first off, sorry about the late update, I meant to post this like a week ago and then I forgot.  
> Secondly, Ukhjamusedêz is another name for Yavanna (like Kaminzabdûna), in case you couldn't tell.   
> Thirdly, and this has literally nothing to do with the chapter or the story as a whole (I want to emphasize that), but I just watched The Last Five Years a couple days ago and holy crap it's so good why did Jamie have to ruin everything (I'm not saying Cathy was a saint, but still, Jamie was the one who decided to leave instead of fixing things, not to mention started everything going downhill in the first place) and why does a musical about adultery and divorce and pain have to have such good music??????? I've been listening to Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You on repeat pretty much since I watched the movie; I actually ran the movie back when the end credits started playing just so I could listen to it again. Seriously, that song is so good, if I ever sing publicly, I'm singing Cathy's part of that song, I swear. But seriously, if you haven't seen/heard that musical, at least look up that one song. It's a timejump, just to forewarn you, so Cathy's part is after their first date and Jamie's part is five years later, remembering what it was like when they first got together. I'm Still Hurting is also a fantastic song, it just doesn't stick in my head quite like Goodbye Until Tomorrow (specifically) does.  
> Also I'm working my way through Being Human and for someone who's working on a b/f fic, I am spending way, way, *way* too much time looking at Aidan Turner's pretty face. Unfortunately, I have come to the realization... I'm a fangirl, I'm a massive fangirl. Not so much I want to marry him or anything, but yeah, I could put up with a lot for a little more time watching his pretty, broody characters on screen. Hence why I'm on season two of Being Human, because I don't know if you guys can tell, but I'm a prude and I'm not a fan of swearing, so I'm wincing through like half of every episode and actively holding my hand in front of my eyes every time things get steamy. Still, it's impressively well written. And Aidan Turner is very, very pretty. Even with his hair weirdly oily. And puffing out from behind his ears like a dork.  
> Anyway, fangirling over, hope you liked this chapter, don't know when the next will be up, let me know if you have any suggestions for things you'd like to see around the mountain/characters you'd like a little more time with. I have a rough plot worked out, but it's still a little barebones, so I can flesh it out with your prompts pretty easily.  
> Увидимся!


	4. Of a Wedding Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, they're married now

Fíli closed the door carefully, sliding a lock into place; the bedding, as distasteful as it was, was an ingrained enough tradition that he wouldn’t put it past a few of the more drunken lords to try and barge in despite their escape.

Bel took a few steps further in, looking around the room; Fíli glanced over it, trying to see it through her eyes.

It was dark, maybe too dark, with only the fire for light. He could see well enough, but he didn’t know how good her night-eyes were. The bed was against the wall opposite the fire, huge even for a Dwarven bed, though still not as big as Thrain’s or Thorin’s had been. Across from the entrance was the door to the washroom, two huge wardrobes to its left. That looked strange; the second hadn’t been there that morning when he left. There was a vanity against the wall on the far side of the bed, now, and another chest of drawers on the near side of the hearth, mirroring his on the far side. The rack for his knives didn’t have a partner, but then, she didn’t carry weapons.

The desk had been moved slightly to accommodate the vanity beside it, and the table he usually used for spare parchment had been moved to a spot partway between the hearth and the entrance, and another chair brought in for it. Everywhere but in front of the hearth and where he stood in front of the door was covered by thick rugs, and extra blankets were on the bed.

And beside everything that would need a bit of height—the vanity, the wardrobe, the bed—there was a step-stool, carved with vines and flowers and such, just as he’d commissioned. The chair that had been brought in was as he’d commissioned, as well, with a smaller, higher seat, high enough that she’d be able to sit properly at the table rather than having the edge at her chin, and bars between the front two legs so she’d have no trouble getting up to the seat or resting her feet.

She still didn’t say anything, and his stomach twisted. “Do you like it?”

She jolted, slightly, at his voice, turning to look over her shoulder at him. “I do.” She smiled, more suddenly than usual, but it seemed more genuine for it. “It’s far more comfortable than I’d expected.”

She moved to stand in front of the fire; Fíli made to follow, then remembered the rugs and paused to take off his boots.

“That’s not a common Ereborian practice, I assume?”

He glanced up at her voice, blinking at the sight of her, gilded by the fire and ornaments and dress shining like molten gold. Swallowing thickly, he forced himself to focus. “No. But I knew Hobbits don’t wear shoes, and I thought the stone might be too cold for bare feet, and I don’t want to track dust and such over these.”

Prying off his socks, he tossed them over his boots and walked over to her; her eyes stayed low, and for a moment, he thought she was avoiding his eyes.

Then he realized she was staring at his feet. “Alright?”

She jolted again, eyes jumping up to his. “Yeah! Yeah, everything’s— fine…” Slowly, her eyes fell to his feet again.

He stifled a laugh; for someone who went about barefoot all the time, it was a bit funny that she was so intrigued by his bare feet. “Sure? You’re still staring.”

Immediately, the cheek lit by the fire darkened; he couldn’t see the other well enough to judge a difference in shade. “Sorry, it’s just… They’re so… bare.”

Glancing at her feet, covered by a thick, shiny mass of the same curls as were on her head, he supposed it made a bit of sense.

Inhaling sharply, she pulled her eyes up to his again, shaking her head. “Sorry, again. That was… rather unspeakably rude, by Hobbit standards.”

He smiled easily. “No offense taken. I’d say something about not having a beard looking as odd to Dwarves, but I’m sure you’ve already heard that.”

Rolling her eyes, she snorted. “More than once.”

She didn’t go on, and he couldn’t think of anything else to say. The silence lapsed into something tense, or at least anticipatory. Her arms rose to wrap around her waist, her eyes somewhere to the side of the hearth, and he found himself studying the gems at the hem of her skirt.

Somehow, he found the strength to break the silence. “What do you… want?” Wincing at the clumsiness of that, he amended, “Out of— In this, I mean? We… We don’t have to do anything, tonight. Like I said, I’ll deal with anyone who tries to cause trouble tomorrow.”

She smiled, the same sort of sudden smile, but this time it was tight, half a wince. “I believe you. But that’s not…” She took a deep, trembling breath, something horribly fragile in her eyes. “This isn’t where I thought I’d be, a year ago. It’s not where I would have chosen to be, a year ago. But I am here, and this was my choice.”

Before he could think better of it, he blurted, “Why?” Wincing, he shook his head, “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it’s a fair question.” She wrapped her arms a bit more tightly around herself. “It— I had to leave Khazad-dûm, not by choice, and I couldn’t— I couldn’t stay in the Valley. And if I couldn’t be where I really wanted to be and I couldn’t bear to be with my family, I wanted to make it— I don’t know. Make it mean something. Bring something good out of the whole mess.”

“I can understand that.” She met his eyes, visibly puzzled, and now he was the one with a tight, tense smile. “The guards around the Valley. I pushed my family to accept that term in particular.” As always, thinking of Frerin brought an ache he couldn’t easily ignore. “I don’t want anyone else to die like my uncle.”

“Frerin,” she smiled through tears, with nearly as much emotion as his amad had on the subject. “You look like him. Not up close,” she clarified quickly, wiping her eyes, “but from a distance. I got out of the carriage and for a second—”

“You knew h—” Abruptly, everything made a bit more sense. “You were one of the children he saved.”

Nodding, she took another shaking breath. “Probably why I prefer living around Dwarves.”

It only made sense, between the trauma she’d gone through in the Valley and the safety of people like the man who’d died saving her. “That’s why you went to Khazad-dûm. Is that how you met Thorin?”

That brought a smile to her face, at least. “Why I met him, yeah. He came to welcome the arriving ‘veteran of the War’. Bit surprised to find a tiny Tween waiting for him.” Eyes distant, she laughed. “He was convinced there’d be some battle-hardened adult just around the corner, and ended up being so obnoxious about it that I shouted at him to just go, if he was so unwilling to have me. Of course, Thorin being Thorin, he shouted something back, and then I did, and then the next thing we knew, we’d both lost our voices and Fritha was making us tea and shouting at us for being such obstinate idiots.”

He had to laugh at that; it certainly sounded like Thorin. “He speaks very highly of you. So does Fritha.”

Eyes shining, she smiled up at him, and for a moment, the only thing in the world he wanted was to kiss her.

Catching himself, he closed his eyes and took a breath. “I have to ask again, Bel. You said that you want to be here, but wanting to be here isn’t the same as wanting… this.” He gestured lamely at her, himself, the bed, the room as a whole. The firelight flickered in her eyes, and he let his hand drop, let himself take a tiny step closer to her. “Do you want to wait?”

For a moment, she only looked up at him, expression unreadable, other than that it wasn’t hostile or hurt. Then, exhaling slowly, she took a step toward him. “I want this to mean something. Empty words don’t.”

That still wasn’t as straightforward an answer as he wanted, but he was having a hard time thinking, with his wife standing just there, gilded and beautiful and his wife. Slowly, giving her plenty of space to move away, he leaned down and kissed her.

It was only a simple press of lips to lips, like during the ceremony, at first. She leaned into it, lips moving against his, and he traced the tip of his tongue over her top lip, not sure how she’d react. But she opened her mouth with no further prompting, and responded in kind.

Part of him didn’t like the thought that she’d clearly had experience with this, but then, so had he, so he pushed the thought away and risked settling his hands on her waist.

She inhaled sharply, but moved a bit closer. Her hands settled on his chest, just faint pressure through the layers he was wearing, but didn’t stay there. One hand skated down, under his arm, to loop around his back and pull him gently closer. The other skated up, and settled on the back of his neck, under his hair.

The feeling pulled a low groan from his throat, and he was pulling her flush against him before he could think better of it. She broke the kiss with a flinch, and he winced, letting her go. “Sorry, I’m sorry—”

Her hands kept him from backing away, and she shook her head, cheeks noticeably flushed. “No, it’s just— the gems are a bit uncomfortable when they’re pressing in.”

Remembering they were both still in their wedding clothes, he nodded jerkily. “Right, right, we should—” Catching himself, he stopped just short of blurting something that’d likely get him slapped. “I… I mean, maybe we should dress for bed?”

Nodding the same way he had, she drew away. “Right.”

“Right.”

Cheeks hot, he turned away as she did, staying on the side of the bed nearest him as he pulled off his tunic, then jerkin. He tried not to listen to the movements on the other side of the room, but it was a bit difficult not to.

Finally, all he was left in was his underclothes. A hiss came from behind him, and he spun automatically, stilling at the sight of her pulling at one of the nets in her hair.

Only in a shift. A very short shift.

It was solid, he couldn’t see anything, but still, it was a long, frozen moment before he remembered why he’d turned. “Do you—” She looked reflexively at him, and he saw her eyes widen, flicking over him as her cheeks darkened, before returning to his, blinking quickly. Swallowing, he motioned to her hair. “Do you need help?”

Blinking, she swallowed, then nodded mutely.

He motioned to the table, and she moved over as he moved around it, so that he could use the firelight to help him untangle the net. It took a minute, but he managed it, setting it carefully down on the table; Gimli would never forgive him if he ruined her jewelry. There were still a dozen pins in her hair, and he reached for the first without thinking; he stilled, but she didn’t protest or move away, despite the fact that she was facing the table and knew that he’d finished with the net.

Slowly, he continued, pulling pin after pin delicately from her curls, and finding it more and more difficult to ignore the cut of her shift, how close to her he was standing, how she’d tasted—

By the time he finished, she’d turned partway ‘round, facing away from him.

Facing the bed.

Gently, he set the last pin down. “That’s the last one.”

His voice came out so low as to be nearly inaudible. She only nodded. He reached for her, only for her to move away.

Heart plummeting, he pulled his hand back, cursing himself for a fool. But motion caught his eye, and he looked up just as she pulled her shift over her head, just before she climbed onto the bed, entirely bare.

Oh.

Bel didn’t look at him as she moved toward the bed; if she did, she’d lose what little courage she had.

It wasn’t difficult to tug her panties down through the fabric of her slip. Still, she hesitated, one foot already on the step-stool. Was this what she wanted?

But was avoiding this what she wanted? The answer to that was easier, and an easy ‘no’. For all her nerves, she did want this. She wanted to truly be married. She wanted things to be real, to be solid, and being a wife in name only was as opposite that was could be.

Besides, all her nerves had faded away while she was actually kissing him. While she was holding him, being held…

Taking a deep breath, she pulled her slip over her head and stepped up to climb onto the bed, trying not to think about the fact that she was mooning her husband. The covers had already been turned down, and so it was easy for her to slide underneath them and pull the top blanket up to her collarbone.

Nerves fluttering in her stomach, she looked, wide-eyed and unsure, toward Fíli to see what he’d do. He was staring at her, just as wide-eyed, but seemed to come back to himself as she watched, enough color rising in his cheeks that she could see it even with him silhouetted by the fire.

Swallowing, he moved around to the other side of the bed, and pulled off his underclothes—flushing, she jerked her eyes away from his… him—and then he was climbing up to sit beside her.

“Alright?”

He sounded actually hesitant, and part of her wanted to laugh, absurdly. What did he have to be nervous about? He had the easy part of this. But she nodded, a bit too jerkily. “Nervous, that’s all. I’ve never…”

“Nor me.”

The silence got a bit awkward.

“I mean, I do know how… how everything works…”

“And me.”

He nodded as nervously as she had.

For a moment, she just wished he would do something. Then, thinking of how many times her friends had been utterly unable to guess at what she was thinking, she sighed. “I know… I know I haven’t been as… as clear as I maybe could. Sorry. It’s just… Hobbits don’t do anything the obvious way. It’s a bit strange, trying to. It’s a bit strange trying to understand that our way isn’t obvious. But I do want to be here. I do want to be married to you. I do want this to be a true marriage. And I do want that to begin tonight. I’m just…”

“Nervous,” he finished.

She nodded.

A touch on her arm startled her into meeting his eyes; he looked almost as nervous as she felt. Abruptly, she realized that they were nearly the same height, sitting down. His fingers moved lightly over her skin, sweeping over her shoulder; she shivered, not sure why. She wasn’t cold.

His fingers ghosted up her neck to her cheek, then her ear, tracing the tip; that shiver, she understood. Her eyes had fluttered closed at the feeling, and she had to blink them open again, pulse a bit fast.

His eyes were dark, and by the look of it, his nerves were ebbing away with every touch. He moved closer, just a bit. Hand drifting down to cup her cheek, he held her eyes. “I want this to be a true marriage, too. And I know this wasn’t a love match, by any means, but do you think… we could ever…”

Against her will, she thought of Nyr, and had to fight tears. “I don’t know.”

It left her in a broken whisper, and she saw the disappointment flit across his face. Still, he rallied, stroking his thumb over her cheek. “Even if we never do. Dwarves see marriage as a partnership. A husband and wife are meant to stand together through thick and thin, to support each other, to work together as equals. Do you think we could ever have that?”

It sounded… well, it sounded like the marriage her parents had had. It sounded like what Thorin and Fritha had. What Bombur and Minád had.

Sorrow easing under hope, she answered softly, “I hope so.”

That brought something like relief to his eyes, though it was hidden again in a few moments. Eyes flicking from hers to her lips, he leaned slowly closer.

She couldn’t quite keep from following his example, noticing dimly that he’d taken the beads out of his mustache, and, presumably, everywhere else. But still, with him leaning in and his hand dropping to her back and her heart pounding, she didn’t have much space for coherent thought.

Bel woke slowly, too comfortable to move.

Her bladder had other ideas.

Grimacing, she started to get up, only to freeze as she realized her pillow was moving. Remembering the night before—was it morning yet, or had she only slept for a few hours?—she flushed, pulling her legs back from where they’d tangled with Fíli’s. Even that motion was enough to aggravate a deep, aching soreness in and around her hips, but she forced herself to move anyway.

Slowly, carefully, she slid away from Fíli, doing her best not to wake him. Their hands were the trickiest bit, entwined as they were. But after a few moments, she managed to draw entirely away. The fire had died down significantly, compared to earlier, but there was still enough light for her to see the faint furrow in his brow as he pulled the blankets in to fill the space she’d left.

Swallowing, she found the step-stool by memory and crept into the washroom, only closing the door behind her after she saw that there was one lantern still burning, if only lowly, and candles beside it. Turning the lantern up, she lit a few candles, placing most on the counter beside the sink, and one beside the toilet.

Erebor’s plumbing was a bit less ornate than Khazad-dûm’s, and neither were as comfortable as the Valley’s—for more reasons than size—but it was serviceable enough that she had no complaints. There was a separate chamber connected by a screen; knowing Dwarven architecture, she thought it was probably the bath, but didn’t check.

After doing her business and washing her hands, she returned the candles to where they’d been positioned when she came in and took a breath to blow them out.

Then she noticed the mirror on the inside of the door.

Morbidly curious, she moved to stand just before it, a candle in her hand, and looked over herself.

She’d lost a bit of weight since leaving Khazad-dûm, but she’d already known that, after she’d had to take in her clothes. Not much, but enough to be noticeable. Her hair was a mess, but evidently she hadn’t tossed and turned like usual, as the curls weren’t in terrible condition, apart from being squished on one side. But apart from that, she looked like herself. Half of her had expected to see some drastic change, or at least a glint in her eye or something, now that she was a married woman. She wasn’t sure whether or not to be disappointed by the lack.

But it was still true. She was married. She was a wife. Fíli was her husband. She and Fíli had…

Flushing as she remembered what, exactly, they’d done the night before, she put down the candle and blew them all out, turning the lantern down to the dim spark it had been when she entered.

But even that made it impossible not to think of why, exactly she was so sore, the sparks that had filled her blood, more and more thickly until finally, lightning had swept through her and swept away every sensation but that of Fíli against her and on her and…

Her pulse throbbed, low and insistent.

Biting back a low curse, she felt her way to the door handle and stepped back into the bedchamber, heat immediately meeting her like a blanket in the air. After the cold tile, the rugs were heaven under her feet, and she remembered Fíli saying that he’d had them brought in especially for her.

It wasn’t necessary—Hobbit feet could take worse than chilly stone—but it was sweet, and it was thoughtful, and it was kind. It showed that he was willing to inconvenience himself for her sake, and that could only bode well, couldn’t it? She wouldn’t have been surprised to walk in and see a room as spartan as any of Thorin and Fritha’s—king and queen they might have been, but she’d chased their little hellions through every room of their suites, and she’d seen for herself that they weren’t much for creature comforts, either of them—and instead she’d found a room that—

Well, it wasn’t a smial, but it was the closest she’d ever seen in a mountain— at least, that hadn’t been decorated by a Hobbit.

Carefully, she climbed back onto the bed, muscles aching as her legs stretched with the motion. It wasn’t surprising—those were muscles she wasn’t sure she’d ever used, at least not so strenuously—but still, she ached. The aching wasn’t enough to keep the memory of why out of her mind, though. Sliding under the covers, she cursed herself silently; Fíli was asleep, she wasn’t going to wake him up again just for a second round. They were married; they’d have plenty of time for that.

Still, she only hesitated a moment before creeping closer to him under the sheets. Even with the fire and the blankets, she was a bit cold, and he was warm.

Fíli watched Bel breathe, sleepy, contented blinking the only movement he made, other than the light circles he was drawing on her back with the hand there. He’d woken a few minutes before, or had it been longer? He’d woken to much the same sight as he had now, bladder dragging him to the washroom, and he’d thought perhaps to wake her when he came back.

But then he’d climbed back into bed and she’d looked so perfect, lying there, that he couldn’t bear to disturb her. Then he’d thought he could just lie next to her and go back to sleep, but she’d moved to him as soon as he laid down, shivering as she clung to him even in her sleep. He thought he understood her situation the night before a bit better now; waking in the middle of the night to feel his wife soft in his arms and insistent that she hadn’t meant to wake him, hadn’t wanted to wake him just for… well, for another confirmation of their marriage, he hadn’t seen why she’d tried so hard to avoid it.

Now, he understood. Maybe if he woke her, she would be as ready as he was—and Mahal, he was aching for her—but she was so peaceful, asleep, and she probably needed the sleep, after the night they’d had, and maybe she wouldn’t be pleased with him for disturbing her.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about her, really, other than that she’d seen his uncle die and she’d chosen to spend her life among Dwarves even before she’d come to Erebor, and that she was too ready to put her own pleasure aside for the sake of others’.

Their second time together, to him, had been even better than the first, but she’d have just let him think she wasn’t dissatisfied if he hadn’t insisted. That alone might have been enough for him to gather that she would set her own pleasure aside, but what she’d said about wanting her change of circumstances to at least mean something, that spoke just as strongly to it. There wasn’t anything wrong with the want to put other peoples’ needs and wants above one’s own—it was the mark of a good leader and ruler, in his opinion—but it did mean he’d have to take care to make sure she was truly content as his wife, not just saying she was.

But he didn’t think he’d find it too hard a task. She hadn’t denied it when he asked directly, just tried to dismiss it, and hopefully she’d agree to his rule in the light of day. Hopefully he’d shown her well enough that it wasn’t any hardship on him if she needed them to go on a bit longer after he was satisfied.

But still, lying with her, even aching for her as he was, he felt himself slip halfway into sleep. His eyes were still open, but his thoughts were muddled and fuzzed, vague concepts like ‘providing’ and ‘family’ and ‘hunger’ only vaguely making themselves known.

After some time—he had no idea how long—she stirred, rubbing her eyes on his shoulder before lifting her head, the motion shaking and wobbly. Still, after a few moments of bleary blinking, she smiled at him. “Mornin’.”

Smiling back, he leaned down to tap his forehead gently to hers. “Morning.”

Yawning, she laid her head down again, moving her hand to wrap around to his back rather than resting on his chest. “Wha’ time is i’?”

He blinked at the canopy for a moment. “No idea.” Usually a servant would come to wake him in time for breakfast, if he wasn’t already awake, but given that this was the first morning of his honeymoon—it wouldn’t be a true honeymoon, as he had duties that couldn’t be filled by anyone else, but at least they would only take him away for a few hours in the afternoons—he had no idea whether or not anyone would come. “I can see about breakfast, if you like.”

A sleepy, pleased hum buzzed lightly into his skin; he could see her smile.

When she didn’t move, he stifled a laugh. “I’ll have to get up to see about it.”

Smile falling into a pout, she whined quietly, grip on him tightening.

Biting back a grin, he traced featherlight circles up her spine to her neck. “Would you rather stay asleep?”

Shivering, she sent a glare up at him; a moment later, her stomach growled loudly enough that he might have heard it from halfway across the room, and her glare turned to a scowl. “Fine.”

Letting go of him, she shoved lightly at his side, not putting any real effort into it. At least, he hoped she wasn’t; if that was her strength, it was a wonder she could even pick up a book. Still, he laughed as he slid off the bed, flashing a teasing grin at her; she glared back, but she was hiding a smile, he thought.

Only remembering to pull on trousers because he tripped over them, he was walking into the common area a moment later. Some mornings, there would be visiting nobles or festivals or such to be preparing for and he and his family would take their breakfast in the greater dining hall with any of the nobility invited there. But most of the time, there was nothing so annoying as that, and servants would simply bring food to the royal suites, for them to wake and eat at their leisure.

Of course, these weren’t the king’s suites, or the heir’s suites. But Thrain often joined them, when he wasn’t too busy, and before they’d gone to Khazad-dûm, Thorin and Fritha had usually joined them all as well. Now, his amad and adad’s room—the largest in the suite, to the left of Fíli’s room, on the western wall—lay empty, as they’d moved into Thorin and Fritha’s former chambers. Frerin’s room—between theirs and Fíli’s—was kept empty out of respect for him. And Kíli’s was on the other side of Fíli’s.

Thirty years earlier, he’d have walked out of his room and seen all his immediate family sitting around the table, talking and laughing, and usually at least a few of his cousins, as well, especially once Dwalin and Nori finally married.

Now, there was only Kíli, his boots propped up on an empty chair. He nearly choked, laughing, when he saw Fíli. “Morning, new Mister Cybele— or however it is Hobbits do married names,” he laughed. “Tired? All worked out? Hungry after a long, sleepless night?”

Rolling his eyes, Fíli grabbed a sausage once he was close enough to the table and chucked it at Kíli’s head. “Don’t be vulgar.”

Kíli caught the sausage as it bounced off his forehead, sending Fíli an unimpressed glare. “Like I’m saying half the things Thorin or Dwalin would, if they were here.”

Fíli snorted, piling food on a waiting tray. “Yeah, and then Amad would wallop all three of you within an inch of your lives— with Adad and Sigin’adad’s blessing and help.”

Blanching at the thought, Kíli pulled his feet off the chair. “Good point. But seriously—” He waited until Fíli looked over, then raised his brows at him. “Feel blessed yet, married man?”

Remembering the feeling of Bel in his arms, against his skin, Fíli felt his blood rush to his cheeks— some, that is; the rest rushed down, and he grabbed the tray for a quick escape.

Kíli guffawed, but called after him as he reached the door, “Tell my new sister good morning for me!”

Shaking his head, Fíli steadied the tray against his stomach and opened the door with his now-free hand. Once it was open, he leaned back against it to keep it that way and flashed a gesture at Kíli that would have gotten him walloped worse than Kíli, if their amad had been there. Kíli returned it, cackling, and Fíli closed the door behind him, rolling his eyes hard enough that they ached with the motion.

Bel wasn’t in bed when he looked over, instead standing in front of her wardrobe, tying a dressing gown shut at her waist. He tried not to be too obviously disappointed. “Breakfast in bed?”

Snorting softly, she pulled a few curls out from under her collar and moved to the table. “Given the state of the sheets, I think this is probably a better idea.”

He couldn’t refute that, much as he wanted to. Really, how badly he wanted to refute it just proved her point more thoroughly. Setting down the tray, he realized he hadn’t grabbed plates or cutlery. “One second. Kíli says good morning, by the by.”

A quicksilver grin lighting her face as she followed him to the door, she snickered, “I heard.”

She pulled the door open for him; he only glanced at her long enough to make sure she was decent before striding out, snickering openly at Kíli as he choked on his spit at the sight of Bel. “Uh, I— Well—”

“Morning, new brother.” Her tone was dry, but there was a laugh in it anyway. “Or should I call you Kíli, now?”

He sputtered, face red as a ruby. Taking full advantage of his incapacitation, Fíli grabbed the cranberry juice Kíli always hoarded, as well as a pitcher of water and a handful of silverware.

“You’re free to call me Bel, of course. Although Balin didn’t actually cover that— is there some sort of rule that family have to call each other by titles?”

The question was put lightly enough that Fíli didn’t think she was overly concerned about it—or didn’t want to let on that she was concerned—but he glanced back at her as he answered, anyway; her expression was only one of idle curiosity, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. “For official ceremonies and such. Other than that, nah.”

Wrapping the cutlery in a couple cloth napkins, he took up everything and headed back to the room. She pushed the door more fully open as he did, smirking at Kíli as she did. “Nice chatting with you.”

If he said anything before the door closed, Fíli didn’t catch it, and he laughed with Bel as he set the things in his hands down beside the tray. She moved carefully to the table, a bit too carefully, and he realized how dim the room was with a jolt. “Sorry, just—”

Going to the fire, he stoked it, shoveling a fresh load of coal carefully over the flames. That done, he went to the lanterns that hung over the door, on either side of the hearth, over the washroom door, and on either side of the bed. Those turned up, the room was easily as bright as the common area just outside. She was looking around, a bemused smile to match her raised brow, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, I probably should have done that last night, but…”

“With what we were about to do, there wasn’t much point?” Smile pulling into a smirk, she took her seat, her dressing gown falling open as she did so that he caught sight of very nearly her entire leg.

It was a long moment before he was able to shake himself and sit opposite her.

“Actually, I just forgot that you might need the extra light. I knew it was a bit dark, but…” Shrugging, he offered an apologetic grimace, realizing she was a bit taller than him with how high her chair was.

She shook her head, loading her plate. “No, it’s fine. We would’ve had to either stop to turn the lights down or go to sleep with the lights on, so I don’t mind.”

That wasn’t strictly true—he could have turned them down when he got the washcloth after they’d finished—but he saw her point, and accepted it with a nod.

Taking a sip of water, she bit her lips for a moment before venturing, “Last night… You seemed a bit insistent that we’d have to have a certain conversation today.”

Stilling, he nodded, pouring himself a glass of water as well. “I was and I am.”

“Then let’s start, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... yeah, this is going to be a little earthier than I usually write. Only a little--I'm not going to actually show anything--but stuff is happening off-screen and I feel like it would be unrealistic for them to not think about it.  
> Not much to say, partially because I am very tired right now, but it shouldn't be too-too long before the next chapter goes up. We'll see how the actual!plotting goes.


	5. Of a First Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first real conversation is always the most awkward

Cutting her food into—well, she was more dicing the pieces than cutting them to be bite-sized, but it gave her something to do, at least—Bel waited as Fíli took a sip of water, clearly considering how to begin.

“I don’t know anything about Hobbit culture. I know I said that last night, but it bears repeating. I don’t really know anything about Hobbits, either, other than just the differences in appearance. You’re familiar with Dwarves and some of our customs, I’m sure, but I’m also sure that you don’t know everything. So, some misunderstandings seem inevitable. That’s why I think we should talk, to try and prevent a few culture clashes.”

She couldn’t say he was wrong about any of that; still, she raised her brows at him. “Such as?”

He bit his lip, thinking; she had to jerk her eyes from his mouth, remembering how those lips and teeth had felt on her skin. “How much affection do Hobbits show publicly? Because—maybe you’ve seen—Dwarves don’t show any, really. Even only around family, we’re reserved.”

“No, I’ve seen that,” she laughed, thinking of the first, confusing months in Khazad-dûm. “A few of the married couples that came to Khazad-dûm with me ended up banned from nearly everywhere until they promised not to kiss in public again.”

He choked on his drink; it took long enough for him to stop coughing that she was refilling her plate before he spoke again. “So— So Hobbits don’t see anything wrong with that, then?”

Cutting her food, she shook her head. “Not with kissing. Anything past that—certainly anything underneath clothing—is entirely improper to do in public, but kissing on the mouth, the cheek, the forehead, the hands—not to mention holding hands, or walking arm in arm—that’s all perfectly fine.”

He’d gone very still partway through the sentence, and it was a moment after she finished before his eyes moved away from her mouth. As flushed as she was, he took a sip of water. “Most of that isn’t, for Dwarves. I don’t know if you went to any formal occasions in Khazad-dûm— although, knowing Thorin, he might have just avoided having them at all. He always did hate those.”

For a few moments, Fíli stared at nothing, frowning. Visibly shaking himself, he looked back at her. “But at formal events—anniversaries, funerals, festivals— and especially any sort of holy day—touching at all won’t be tolerated. Even me offering my arm would be practically obscene.”

That was… significantly more ascetic than she’d realized Dwarves were. Soberly, she nodded. “And day-to-day, in public, nothing more than me taking your arm?”

He hesitated, then bobbed his head to the side. “Holding hands would be acceptable, I think. And if we went somewhere non-Dwarven—Dale, for instance—Mannish standards would apply. They’re fairly close to Hobbitish, by the sound of it.”

That was something, at least; a bit relieved, she took a few bites of her food.

Shaking his head, he leaned forward. “But that’s why I think we need to talk. If we hadn’t talked about that just now, would you have kissed me out in the mountain proper?”

Considering it, she bobbed her head. “Maybe. Probably not for at least another few months, but at some point, probably.”

He spread his hands in a silent ‘this is my point’ sort of gesture. “Like I said, I don’t know much of anything about Hobbits, so you’d be in a better position to think of possible misunderstandings down the line, or things you think I ought to know in general.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it; he shook his head, waving in such a way that she understood he was yielding the floor, so to speak. “Well, the outdoors are important to us. Part of that’s from living in the Valley, of course—no Hobbit goes a full day without going up to the surface for a few minutes, at least—but it’s more than that.”

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts and considering how best to phrase it; he took up his fork and knife, but clearly gave her his full attention as he ate. “Living in Khazad-dûm, the first year I was there, I scarcely saw sunlight more than once a month, less when we were snowed in, and by the time spring came around again, I was so weak and ill that the others were thinking of sending me back to the Valley. And then they thought some fresh air would do me good after being inside all winter and I was nearly back to normal after less than a week of spending all day in the sun.”

His eyes were wide, food forgotten. “And you still lived in the mountain?”

Shrugging, she let herself smile. “Going outside a day or two a week was enough to keep me healthy, and once or twice a month I’d take an entire rest day to picnic.”

Scoffing lightly, he shook his head, eyes still wide. “It’s no wonder you’re so tanned.”

She snorted, smirking. “It’s no wonder you’re all so pale— it’s a wonder there are any Dwarves with any color in their cheeks, with how much you stay inside your mountains.”

Laughing, he lifted his glass to her. “You aren’t wrong.”

Returning the toast, she sipped at her water as she went on. “Apart from needing sunlight, there’s food, I suppose.”

“Food?”

Smiling wryly, she nodded to the nearly-empty tray. “I could have eaten all that by myself, and I’ll be just as hungry at midday.” Taking another sip as his eyes bugged, she ventured, “I… I don’t suppose you’d be alright with my keeping some food in here? It’s just that Hobbits take meals a bit more often than Dwarves, and I’ve gotten used to snacking when I can.”

Brow furrowed, he shook his head, then shook it again, more quickly. “No, I mean, I don’t have any problem with that, but how much more often do Hobbits eat?”

Wincing, she half hid her eyes behind the glass, leaning her temple against it. “…Seven times a day?” His eyes bugged again; she sighed. “I don’t expect to be fully catered throughout the day. I’m more than used to only taking three full meals. I just… usually have another couple on my own.”

A few long moments later, he closed his mouth, taking a deep breath. Then another. “New rule—if you agree to it—tell me if you’re hungry. That’s an extension of the first, I suppose, but the point still stands. And it’s already custom for enough food to feed a small army to be brought to the common area in the morning for all of us to breakfast as and when we wish, so feel free to eat your fill, I can grab more food if you’re still hungry.”

Blinking at him, she could only nod. “Thank you.”

He waved that off, taking a drink of the juice he’d brought in. Face screwing up, he set the glass down again with a _thud_ ; how little he’d poured was the only reason it didn’t spill all over the table. “How does Kíli drink that every morning? Mahal!”

Fighting a laugh, she held out a hand. “Can I?”

Still grimacing as though he couldn’t help it, he handed her the glass with a shrug. “At least you’re fully warned.”

Biting back a smile as he gulped down water, she sipped the juice, eyes widening at the taste. “Cranberry juice! I wouldn’t have thought they grow this far east!” There was some sort of seasoning added, or perhaps it was a different sort of клюков, but still, she knew that flavor.

Brows high, he shook his head. “They don’t; Kíli has it brought it from the Greenwood.”

Well, that would explain it; if they were being brought in wooden barrels, the weeks would change the taste a bit. Still, she poured herself a full glass. “But I was meaning to ask about that— ‘Rules’?”

She raised her brows at him, challenging, and he winced. “Maybe not the best phrasing. But like we both agreed, this marriage should be a partnership, and for that to happen, we need to trust each other. Since we’re from different worlds as well as different Races, rules might be a good idea, until we know each other well enough to know what to avoid or take extra care with.”

“Like not touching much outside this room,” she finished.

He nodded. “I wouldn’t make that a real rule, though, since it’s something you already know about Dwarven culture. More with things like… well, if Hobbits have anything like that. Places that are a bit taboo, other than what’s covered by clothes, like you said earlier.” She flushed; he raised a brow. “Is there something?”

Trying and failing to banish the heat in her cheeks, she took another sip of juice. “Well, sort of. It’s not— Well, actually, our feet are a cultural taboo, like Dwarves and your hair.”

Brow furrowing, he seemed to remember that his food was there, and took up his fork again. “How so?”

“Well, there’s nothing illicit or inappropriate about them— they’re feet. But commenting on them, even if it’s a compliment, is… not done,” she finished delicately. “And to suggest that a Hobbit needs shoes is a huge insult— Fangs and clangs,” she laughed, “I nearly killed Thorin when he tried to insist I put on great ugly boots before I could go into the workshop. We do wear boots sometimes, but only in the deepest winters or over genuinely dangerous ground, and even then, they’re only light things, more like what Men wear than Dwarven boots.”

Looking as though he were caught halfway between a laugh and a grimace, he nodded. “Hopefully you’ll have a bit of patience with Kíli; he’ll probably do just the same as Thorin, or try to talk your ear off about how they look.”

At the word ‘ear’, hers twitched, and his eyes snapped to them before returning to hers, more thoughtful than he’d looked yet that morning. “Although if I’m not mistaken, you weren’t going to talk about your feet when you began to explain.”

Cheeks heating, she ignored her blood drifting down and kept her eyes on the wall to the side of his head, digging her thumb into the side of her index finger. “No, I was going— well, it’s not a cultural taboo, so much as just—”

Grimacing at her own hesitance to discuss it, she fixed her eyes on the edge of the table—where his too-intent expression was out of the corner of her eye—and forged resolutely on, despite her growing flush and the increasingly insistent thrum of her pulse between her hips. “Hobbit ears are sensitive. They have to be, with how much we rely on our hearing, but that— It means— Well, touching a Hobbit’s ears without permission— you might as well be kissing them, or touching their— or touching a Dwarf’s beard without leave. And even with permission, you don’t touch another Hobbit’s ears unless you’re married to them, unless you’re a healer, and even if you’re a healer, that’s unbelievably— just—”

“Indecent?” The rumbling murmur came from far too close, the heat that radiated from him reaching her after a moment and quickly joined by his breath hot on her ear—how hadn’t she heard him move?—but the shudder that wracked her couldn’t be further from distaste. His hand skated lightly over the side of her leg, from her knee to her hip, and her breath stuttered. “Rude?”

The chair moved under her, and she grabbed his arm instinctively, only realizing after she did that he was the one moving the chair, rotating it slowly on one leg so she’d face him; feeling the strength in his arm, his muscles like stone under her hands, her pulse grew that much harder to ignore. He leaned in as he moved the chair, keeping his mouth just beside her ear, his beard rasping over her cheek as he spoke, low and captivating and far, far too close; breath short, her eyes fell closed of their own accord. “Licentious?”

Chair settled, his hands traced a twisting, teasing path from her hips to her knees, then squeezed her thighs gently, even as he murmured, “I may not be a Hobbit, but I am married to you. Do I have permission to touch?”

Unable to muster a single word, she just moved her hands to his chest, spanning themuscles there, restrained and tense, then slid them around to his back, parting her legs enough that he could move to stand between them.

It was several minutes before the lightning faded away to sparking aftershocks, leaving them both sated and boneless and still tangled in each other on the bed. Her dressing gown was still gathered at her shoulders, she realized, but taking it the rest of the way off would mean moving, and that was out of the question.

It would also mean moving Fíli from where he was still lying mostly on top of her, warm and heavy, and even if that were possible, she wouldn’t have wanted to.

He sighed, moving his head to lean his forehead against her temple; with an effort, she craned her head around so that she could let her forehead lean against his, and a breathless laugh left him, his hand gently squeezing her hip. “I don’t think we quite finished that discussion.”

At the understatement, she had to laugh, though the sound was only quiet, as languorous as the rest of her. “Not quite.”

“But like I said, I only mean whatever rules we agree on to be a stopgap until we know each other better. I don’t want you to agree to anything you don’t like, and I don’t want you to think you can’t make rules for me, too.”

A silent laugh shaking her, she tilted her head up to ghost her lips over his. “So if my rule was that we’ll be celibate from now on?”

At that, a genuine, warm laugh burst from him and warmed her all through. “I mean, you could make it, but I wouldn’t agree.”

Grinning, she bumped her nose against his. “Sounds horrible, doesn’t it?” They hadn’t even been married a full day yet, and already, she wasn’t sure she could stand to never feel him on her, against her, over her.

A short, smiling kiss was all the answer he gave to that. Drawing back just far enough to lean his forehead against hers again, he ran his hand idly up and down her side. “But like I said, my only rule so far is just— let me know when you need something, or even want something. Even if you don’t want to make a fuss.” A short laugh left him, lips twitching into a smile. “I don’t know you well enough to tell when you’re hiding something.”

She’d have squirmed if he hadn’t been pinning her down, and still grimaced. The thought of making a— of grumbling, anytime she was less than completely satisfied— it went against everything she’d ever known. That just— That’s not how people were meant to be. But even as the thought crossed her mind, an impulse to close the distance between them prompted her to lift her hand, settling her palm against his side, feeling his ribs move as he breathed. Still grimacing, she closed her eyes. “I don’t want to be an obligation. Running to you every time I don’t get my way— It sounds so childish.”

A silent laugh shaking him, he bumped his nose against hers the way she had a minute earlier. “I don’t mean that I want you to tell me every time you stub your toe, ju— Oh, was that something I shouldn’t say?”

He sounded genuinely alarmed at the thought, and she laughed, skating her hand up to his neck to trace soothing circles over his spine. “Actually, that’s fitting. Hobbits stub our toes, same as anyone, but it doesn’t hurt unless we break something.”

He laughed, too, sounding more relieved than anything. “Good to know, but really, I just mean that if there’s something that’s really bothering you or that you need, tell me, even if it seems like there isn’t anything that can be done about it. Maybe there isn’t, but there’s no way to know without asking.”

That was more reasonable, she supposed. Still more than she was comfortable with, but she could understand why he was so insistent on it; if things had been different and he’d come to live in the Valley, she’d have wanted to do anything she could to make him feel at home. This wasn’t so different. “Alright. But my first rule— Never treat me like a child. That was always the most frustrating thing about living in Khazad-dûm.”

He nodded easily. “I won’t. You might want to get to know Kíli, though.”

Blinking at him, she frowned. “Why? I’m not opposed to it—he seems a good deal like some of my cousins—but why specifically?”

He shrugged lightly. “He’s friends with an Elf or two—that’s why he visits the Greenwood enough to get a taste for their drinks—maybe you heard about that from Thorin. But he knows what’s it’s like to be treated like a child when you’re anything but, and he’s more than used enough to being around non-Dwarves to not let your being a Hobbit trip him up.” After a moment, he added, “He was the one to point out that I should make sure you had furniture that would actually be your size. Hobbits and Dwarves aren’t so different, as far as that goes, but still, I know I’ve already seen you using the step-stools.”

She nodded absently, considering what little she’d seen of the younger prince thus far. “I could manage without, but I’m glad I don’t need to. But it must be so much worse for him in the Woodland Realm.”

Snickering, Fíli nodded. “Every time he comes back, he rants about how bloody tall everything there is.”

“I can imagine,” she laughed. For a few moments after her laughs ebbed away, she just breathed and enjoyed the feeling of his hand still moving over her skin. Remembering herself, she murmured, “Any other rules you want to discuss?”

He shook his head, half shrugging. “No, not that I can think of.”

Eyes falling to his lips, she forced herself to meet his gaze again. “I can. We have to talk for at least fifteen minutes or so every day.”

His brow twitched up, but he didn’t argue. “Alright. That needs to be a rule?”

Swallowing thickly, she let her fingers skate higher, into his hair, and forced herself not to get distracted when he shuddered, grip tightening on her. “You really think neither of us will use this to avoid actually talking?”

Jaw tight and eyes screwed shut, he nodded once. “Fair enough.”

Before either could say anything further, her stomach growled, not especially loudly, but enough to be heard.

Shaking, he met her eyes with a laugh. “Time for more breakfast, then.”

Pursing her lips against the heat building in her cheeks, she corrected, “Second breakfast.”

He raised a brow, but only rolled smoothly off the bed and offered her a hand, smirking.

Losing the battle against a smile of her own, she took it, and tied her dressing gown again while he yanked trousers on and left to fetch the food.

“So,” he set down the tray in front of her, pouring himself a glass of water as she began loading a plate, “I’d ask you about the Valley, but that might make it a bit difficult to eat. Want to hear about Erebor?”

She snorted, but nodded. “I doubt I’ve seen a tenth of it so far.”

“Oh, not even that. Not even a hundredth. The—” He paused in the middle of beginning some sweeping gesture. “How’s your sense of direction?”

She bobbed her head, swallowing her mouthful. “Good with left and right, good with cardinal directions, alright at navigating inside mountains, but it helps if I have landmarks to orient myself.”

Nodding, he continued his gesture, sketching a rough triangle in the air. “Right, so the royal wing isn’t in the peak, that’s where the emergency storage is, and the most secure vaults. You won’t be allowed any higher than we are now, I should think. But we are above most of the mountain, so you shouldn’t need anything in the peak, anyway.

“The level we’re on has the royal wings in the center, but there are only two exits, for security’s sake, to the east and the west. Directly to the east are the royal workshops— they’re only for our personal projects, so if we want to collaborate with someone else, we use their workshop. To the west are the royal kitchens— the chefs and cooks there do work in other kitchens, sometimes, but they’re the only ones trusted to cook for us, it’s a huge honor for them. The north is the royal armory, the south is the only access to the rest of the mountain. Northeast is storage for the workshops, northwest is cold storage for any game that Kíli or anyone else brings in—”

“That’s right, Kíli’s a hunter, isn’t he?”

Fíli grinned, more broadly than she’d seen on him before, and abruptly, she realized he was handsome. She’d thought, before, that he was handsome for a Dwarf, but just then, seeing him simply, openly, proudly happy at the thought of his brother, he was as handsome as any Hobbit, Man, or Elf she’d ever seen. “Best hunter east of the Misty Mountains, and probably west of them, too. That’s his Craft, although he’s determined to make a sword to outshine the best in Erebor someday.”

Not so different from Thorin, clearly, though Thorin had only ever talked about making armor. Curious, she tilted her head. “What’s your Craft?”

His smile shrank, but didn’t subside, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m a jeweler, like my father.”

She might have added something about her father or her ‘craft’, although Hobbits didn’t call it that, but she was still rather very hungry. “What’s southeast?”

“That’s the guardroom for the royal wing; it isn’t a full guard post, that’s on the level below, but it’s a place for them to work from. And then southwest is the testing area— Everything that comes up to this level has to be inspected, to make sure it isn’t poisoned, or holding a secret message or something.”

For an instant, she froze.

“Alright?”

Eyes snapping to him, she forced a smile, and forced herself to relax. “Fine. I’ve got a piece or two of jewelry that are a bit delicate, that’s all. I’ll just have to check that they’re alright later.”

If he noticed that she was still tense, he didn’t linger on it, waving off her concerns easily. “They aren’t invasive inspections at all, and they take care not to damage anything, and to replace it just as it was. I doubt you’d have even noticed that your things had been inspected if I hadn’t said anything.”

A knock came at the door before she could think of a response to that. Grimacing, he rose and crossed to the door; she adjusted her dressing gown to cover a bit more of her chest, double-checking that she was decent before taking up her fork again. 

Glancing back at her, Fíli opened the door, barely enough to be polite. The Dwarf on the other side—Bel could only see enough of his face to tell he was a brunette, too darkly tanned to be anything but a guard too lowly ranked to be given any but the most distasteful patrols—spoke in low, rapid Khuzdûl.

After only a few seconds, Fíli cut him off, voice hard. “In Westron. What do you mean, I’m being summoned?”

At that, Bel nearly gave away entirely how closely she was listening; with an effort, she forced her eyes to her plate. She still listened.

“Your Royal Highness, Lord Balin sends his most sincere apologies, but he said something’s come up. You’re needed in his offices.”

Even without looking directly at him, she could see how tense Fíli was. “What is so important that it can’t wait a day?”

“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness, he didn’t say. Just that it was important.”

Fíli didn’t respond for a moment; Bel glanced up just in time to see a muscle in his jaw tic before he nodded once. “Tell him I will join him at the first opportunity.”

The Dwarf hesitated, then—seeing the steel in Fíli’s expression, Bel assumed—stepped back and bowed, the top of his head coming into view underneath Fíli’s arm where he was still holding the door, then disappeared.

Fíli closed the door, but didn’t return to the table straightaway. Jaw still tight, he closed his eyes and only breathed for a few seconds. His hands were clenched at his sides.

Setting down her fork, she leaned over a bit to try and see his face better. “Fíli?”

He startled, only slightly, but enough for her to notice, and looked quickly at her, a wince of a smile pulling at his lips. “Sorry. Really, I am sorry; I was meant to have today completely free, but apparently that was too much to ask.”

He moved to one of the chests of drawers, but he was still tense, and she didn’t go back to her meal, just twisted in her seat to keep him in view. “If you were meant to have today off, it must be important for you to be summoned like this.”

Piling clothes on top of the dresser, he nodded shortly. “It must. But I can at least show you the way outside before I go.”

She blinked, then jolted around with a blush as he began to remove his trousers. A part of her was aware that maidenly modesty wasn’t exactly fitting for her at this point, but still, she kept her eyes on the door. “It sounds as though you should go as quickly as you can, though. I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

“It’s not out of my way.” He paused; she heard a buckle being fastened. “Well, not too far out of my way. Besides, the alternative is what, that you stay in the Royal Wing all day? No, I’ll show you the nearest exit and I’ll send Gimli after you once I get to Balin—I know Glóin will be there, he’ll know where a runner can find her—and she can take you anywhere else you’d like to go.”

Considering the idea, Bel couldn’t think of any reason against it; offering him a tiny, grateful smile, she stood and moved to the wardrobe. She couldn’t very well traipse about the mountain in only a dressing gown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS ALIIIIIIIVE  
> Sorry about the delay, I kind of forgot about this. Also, I'm trying to keep a buffer with this.   
> Although I might post the next one in the next few days. That's where the story's really going to get going.  
> So, yeah, if you're interested/curious, leave a comment, otherwise it'll go up whenever I finish the next chapter (I just finished chapter nine, btw).  
> Á bientôt и увидимся!


	6. Of a Negotiation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or would ultimatum be a better word?

The walk to the exit was shorter than she’d expected, albeit mostly occupied with idle chatter as Fíli pointed out landmarks as they went, mostly coupled with tidbits of stories she wanted to hear in full.

‘That’s the best tea shop in the mountain— I think I might still be banned though, Kíli and I got way too drunk a few years ago.’

‘A little ways down that road is a foundry, that’s where I made my first sword.’

‘Stay away from that alley— a lot of the workers around here use it to get home at the end of the day, and being trampled isn’t any fun, believe me. Especially not the second time.’

It was funny, but it was also surprisingly sweet. Largely because she could tell he was rambling. Eventually, they reached the exit— or the beginning of the exit, anyway. Once Fíli had the door open, she saw that it was a long tunnel, descending into the darkness further than she could see.

Now she knew why he’d brought a lantern.

“I have to get to Balin, but the exit’s down the stairs, the guard should know who you are, he’ll let you out and in again. But—” He winced, sobering as he held her eyes. “—I do have to ask that you not go out of earshot, Bel. The lands around Erebor are as safe as possible, but we’ve had reports of wolves and worse slipping through. Anything that makes it this far is going to be ravenous.”

She nodded easily, to hide the tremors she could feel running through her as much as anything else. “I won’t.”

Expression clearing a bit, he handed her the lantern and hesitated. After a moment, he inclined his head to her. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Biting back a smile at his awkwardness, she inclined her head in turn. “I’ll probably make it back before you do.”

He nodded. After another few moments, he inclined his head again and left.

Turning to the tunnel, she steeled herself before stepping in. Holding the lantern high, she heaved the lever up to close the door she’d come through, leaving her lantern the only source of light in sight.

As she descended, she thought of their farewells, mostly to distract herself from the dark pressing in on her. How did one bid their spouse adieu? It probably should have been an easy question, but then, combining it with the question of how to bid a near-stranger adieu was really the difficult part.

It was a strange situation she’d made for herself. Fíli was a near-stranger, and he was her husband. She didn’t know his favorite color, his favorite food, even his birthday, but she knew the taste of him and how his hands felt on her skin. She didn’t know how to say ‘bye for now’ to him, but she knew how he looked when he was about to—

Well, that wasn’t exactly something she’d had cause to see on anyone else before.

But it only went to show all the more strongly that he was simultaneously someone she didn’t know nearly at all, and someone she knew more intimately than anyone on Arda.

Was he someone she wanted to know? She thought so. So far, he seemed kind, seemed intelligent, seemed— no, he’d shown how considerate he was, in more ways than one. If they hadn’t been married, if she’d come to Erebor on a visit or if he’d visited Khazad-dûm a year earlier, she’d have gotten on with him. Maybe they wouldn’t have really hit it off, but they’d have been able to hold a conversation, at least. At least when she wasn’t talking to—

She froze, barely able to breathe past the realization— She’d almost forgotten about Nyr.

How— How was that possible, how could she be so horrible, how could she—

Smothering a sob in her sleeve, she forced herself to focus out of sheer willpower and continued down. She could see light now.

The Dwarf standing guard was short-ish, with braids sticking nearly straight out from the sides of his head, under his helm. He straightened up as she neared, though he didn’t quite reach a full position of attention.

She didn’t care. She needed out. She needed to think.

“Highness,” he bobbed his head; he might have said more, but she couldn’t muster the patience for that.

“I’d like to go out. Please open the door.”

It was hard to see, even in the combined light of the lantern in her hand and the one hanging opposite the guard, but she thought he drew a rune of some sort on the door before pushing it open.

She was out with a quick ‘thank you’ tossed back, and then she was out, there was grass under her feet—

Barely, it was dry and yellow, but it was grass, and the sky was above her and—

She barely managed to hold on until the door closed behind her before she broke into a run, uncaring of how the lantern collided with her knuckles with every stride. She was in a sort of valley, the gate in the crook of it, and the thought—the lack of escape—made her breath come short even as it hitched so painfully that it was half yanking her forward with every gasp. Scrambling up a slope, she collapsed on the peak and sobbed.

She’d actually forgotten about Nyr, how could she be so heartless?

Now that she’d remembered him, the loss struck her anew, almost akin to a physical wound in her chest, it hurt so badly. Every breath scraped over the pain, flaring it up again.

She’d built a life with him. She’d planned a life with him. She’d wanted to spend her life with him, to have children with him—

And now she was married to Fíli. A man she didn’t know, as opposite Nyr as could be, or nearly, and she would be building a life with him, spending her life with him, bearing his children—

Curling in on herself as she sobbed, she wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to quell the pain. Every touch she’d shared with Fíli rushed back, now making her stomach roil. It should have been Nyr she was kissing, Nyr she was holding, Nyr she was sharing that intimacy with.

But she couldn’t, and that hurt worst of all.

Marrying Fíli hadn’t been the killing blow to all her plans and dreams and wishes, it had been the bare minimum that she could salvage. A life among Dwarves, away from the Valley and all the memories haunting those halls.

But there was no Thorin, no Fritha, no Dwalin, no Nori, and no Nyr.

She was a monster, she was worse than a monster, worse than the бездушная, каменнодушная ведьма who’d ripped everything away from her in the first place.

She’d forgotten about the man she loved—for a matter of hours, but still—as though it had been years, as though—

But wasn’t that good, she didn’t want to hurt like this forever—

But less than a year ago, it had been his arms she was in, it had been his eyes she was staring into, it had been him she was kissing— Hobbits loved easily, but they only gave their hearts once, and she had given her heart completely to him.

Ten months earlier, she’d been forced away from the man she loved and the home she’d found, just ten months, ten bloody months, and now—

How long she stayed there, sobbing, she didn’t know. She felt as though her heart was being ripped away from her all over again, and in the face of that pain, things like time and hunger and the smell of smoke were nothing at all.

But the last did, eventually register, and she jolted upright, already scrambling for the lantern she’d dropped beside her. But the lantern was cold, the grass, amber and dry all around her, was untouched.

A gust of wind gave her a faceful of smoke, and she flailed to her feet, closed eyes burning as fiercely as her lungs as she coughed; once she was on her feet, she backed blindly away until her back collided with something, the mountain, she assumed.

But her hand didn’t find stone, reaching down. It found nothing, or did it? It wasn’t anything solid, her fingers pressing into the something a good half-inch before being forced back to the same level as her shoulders, leaning against whatever it was behind her. It wasn’t alive, wasn’t fuzz, wasn’t cotton, wasn’t fabric, wasn’t water, wasn’t anything.

Slowly, she caught her breath, still having to keep from coughing as every inhale brought a faint burn of smoke in her lungs. Eyes watering, she forced them open, squinting painfully over her shoulder.

There was nothing there. Empty air, and she was leaning heavily on it.

Magic.

The realization sent a terrified jolt through her, her eyes flying wide as she faced forward again and found—

No Dwarf, Hobbit, or Man stood in front of her. He was standing far enough back that she couldn’t see his ears, but something told her he wasn’t an Elf, either.

It was a nondescript sort of face, sharp-featured and as ghostly pale as any Dwarf or Elf she’d ever met—made more so by the soot-black of all his clothes and hair—but the way his eyes were fixed on her made her blood run cold. He walked slowly closer, adjusting his course as she tried to keep any sort of distance between them— the magic blocking the path behind her allowed her to move to the side, but she realized after several feet that it was curving around, probably just a wide circle.

Heart racing, she forced herself to stand her ground, watching him approach as calmly as she could feign.

He didn’t do anything as considerate as kneel when he finally stopped, a half-dozen feet from her, just stood there, being unfairly tall, staring coldly down at her. She was shaking, she realized. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t move. All she could do was hold his eyes and pray that whatever he was after, it wasn’t to turn her into a scorch-mark on the dead grass.

His hair was loose, shaggy and wavy and hanging around his face as though he didn’t care to tie it back, or could see through it. His build was thin, but lean, not starved. She almost might have thought he was an Elf—he was too slight to be anything but an Elf—but she’d met a few Elves on her way to Erebor, and there was a lightness about Elves, even while they seemed to carry the weight of mountains with them. Elves were beings of ancient wisdom and eternal timelessness, youth and eternity forever twisted around each other to create something unmistakable.

Even from half a dozen feet away, she could feel darkness clinging to this man like a shadow, smoke curling up from under his bare feet and twining around his fingers. The light caught oddly in his eyes, already fey-tilted under heavy brows, the color of his pupils impossible to pin down, not only because of the distance, but because it kept changing, blue to green to yellow to amber to red to black and beginning over again, the order changing, the shade shifting from light to dark randomly. It was hypnotic, and she kept her eyes fixed on the bridge of his nose.

“You’re a clever one, aren’t you.” His voice was impossibly deep for someone his size, resonating as though he were bigger than Beorn, though he was of a height with the taller Elves she’d met. His accent was cultured, his tone a mix of mockery, boredom, amusement, and scorn. He spoke as slowly as an Ent, or nearly, as though he had all the time in the world at his disposal.

Whatever this was adding up to, she was terrified of it.

“No questions, little one?” She’d been called that before, by Beorn, by Ents, by Elves, even by tall Dwarves, but this was the first time it was said with an edge of hunger to it, whether for food or entertainment, she couldn’t tell. There was a sibilant note to it, that was important, she knew that was important, but she couldn’t think well enough to understand why.

Swallowing, she cleared her throat weakly. “I’d assumed you were going to kill me. Questions would seem a bit pointless.”

He grinned, too wide, too toothy, too sharp. She might have expected it not to touch his eyes, but they crinkled, an edge of cruel glee joining the callousness there. “You assume the only purpose I might have for you is death.”

Her breath caught, the smoke rolling and curling and reaching off of him—no, out of him—nearly sending her into another coughing fit. But now she understood.

She wished she didn’t.

“You’re Smaug.”

He quirked a brow, boredom easing for an instant. “I already said you were clever, bite. Don’t bother trying to wrack your tiny brain.”

“Who needs to wrack anything? You’ve followed Durin’s Line back to Erebor…” Eyes narrowed, she nodded. “You aren’t here by mistake, and you didn’t trap me by happenstance.” A vicious laugh left her, made all the more harsh by the smoke’s lingering burn. “You can’t touch them!”

His brows drew together, eyes narrowing at her; distantly, she noted that she seemed to have his full attention now, and if she’d been a bit more in her right mind, she would have quailed beneath it.

But she wasn’t, and she didn’t. She laughed again, grinning savagely at him. “You can’t lay a single finger on Durin’s Line or their mountain, can you? So what are you going to do? Hold me hostage?” Grin turning to a sneer, the pain still roiling in her chest gave her words a bit more bite than they might have had otherwise. “They won’t care. I’m no one, to them, so you might as well just kill me now.”

His grin returned, more savage than hers or any Mortal’s could ever be. “But killing you wouldn’t serve my purposes,” he purred. “Have you learned of the Heart of the Mountain yet?”

“Oh, what’s that, your nightlight?”

A tiny voice in the back of her mind told her firmly to shut up before she got gutted. She ignored it.

To her surprise—and slight dismay—he ignored it, too. “A creature as base and limited as a Halfling might regard it as such. A stone, glowing with a light of its own. Used by the Dwarves—pathetic creatures that they are—as a mark of their patron’s approval.”

That rang a bell. “The Arkenstone.”

He nodded once, eyes half-lidded as he watched her. “The Dwarves call it such.”

Her humor—twisted as it was—had been fading, but surged up again at the look on his face. “I can’t steal it for you, if that’s what you want. I’ve no idea where it is or how to get to it, so using me is pointless. I’d say do your own dirty work, but you obviously can’t, so…”

He spoke over her in a bored drawl; the intent glint in his eye belied his tone. “You will. The Dwarves use it as a token of the ruling Line, which you have just married into. In time, you will have access to it. You will then take it and bring it to me.”

“You know, it’s not as if I actually want to die; I’m telling you that you might as well kill me for a reason. I am never going to do anything—at all—that you tell me to.”

He grinned, a cruel blood-thirst to it that made it abruptly easy to remember that she was—somehow—speaking to a dragon in vaguely Mannish form. “You speak too quickly, bite.”

“Stop calling me that.” Her voice trembled, the angry humor she’d been hiding behind fracturing in the face of such ancient inhumanity.

Amusement glinted out as his eyes flashed red-gold-orange. “A tiny bite of a Mortal has no power to command that which is doing the biting.”

“Come a little closer and I’ll show you a bite!” It was a bluff as much as a threat— whatever he wanted her for, she wanted none of it, and the death of one Hobbit had to be better than whatever he would do with the Arkenstone.

“No,” he purred, attention sharpening on her again, “you’ll find that I will.”

The smoke rolling out from him reached her feet, and agony shot through her as completely as the lightning; half-deafened from her own screams, ripping from her throat with enough force that she tasted blood, she fell forward as her legs gave out, only for the agony to redouble as she landed entirely in the pool of smoke.

She just had time to see that the smoke was funneling into her, black needles piercing every inch of skin, before it reached her head—her eyes, her ears, her mouth— and then all there was was the pain.

The world reasserted itself too quickly, agony still paralyzing her. Her ears were ringing— not from the sound of her own screams, her throat had felt as though it had imploded a few moments after she fell, and she hadn’t been able to make a peep after that. Her vision was off, colors not as they should be, her peripheral vision seeming stretched, the mountain blurrier than it had been. The stink of smoke was stronger than ever, but so was the smell of the grass underfoot, the dirt, and other smells, things she hadn’t ever smelled before.

And there was something white at all the edges of her vision, what was that?

Something moved, and her attention snapped to it, quickly enough to leave her dizzy. Smaug grinned cruelly at her, as stark as before, all soot-dark and ghost-pale, but his eyes weren’t shifting colors so much now, though they were still changing shade. His voice seemed louder than before, and she realized that her ears weren’t ringing, there was just more noise surrounding her than she knew how to process. “You will not be heard, today or any other. You will not be able to speak of today’s events or anything related to it, though even if you were to find a way, it would be unwise. After all, you’re an outsider, intruding on their mountain,” he sneered, “and clearly in contact with their ancestral enemy.”

She tried to speak, to demand to know what he’d done to her, but all that left her was a low, whining groan. And that—

That was not her voice.

His grin widened past where it should have, though he was still a bit out of focus, as blurry as though he were standing twenty yards away, not two. “That, combined with your connection to Dwarven magic and your abrupt departure from Moria,” she tried to snap at him not to call it that, even as her heart ached fiercely at the casual reference to the worst day—former worst day—of her life, but all that left was a growl, but… that wasn’t the voice of any of the Free Peoples. “…will convince them in short order that you are, in fact, a witch and a deceiver, after their gold. Dwarves do tend to be protective of their valuables.”

As if he were anyone to talk, the literal dragon, but she didn’t even try to voice that, beginning to get feeling back everywhere. She felt…

She didn’t feel right at all.

She felt…

“I would advise you to either accustom yourself to this form, or bring me the Arkenstone.”

This… form…

Shaking, she tried to stand, only to fall back to the ground. Pain flared in her tongue as she bit the tip, but her teeth were wrong, her mouth— it was too long, too narrow, her teeth were—

Her hands tried to lift to her face, but all that she saw was a white, fur-covered limb. Her legs were digging into the ground, no fabric between her and the grass, but there was something dulling the grass— the same fur, she realized.

Her fur, she realized.

She couldn’t move, staring at her own hands—paws—on the grass, stark white against the dead yellow.

“Beginning to realize, I see.” He sounded bored, again; her eyes lifted slowly to him, breath coming in uneven pants, her mouth instinctively hanging open. “You will take this form at the first touch of sunlight, and remain in it until the last ray of daylight dies. Halflings need sunlight to survive, I understand. It won’t matter whether you face the sunlight as a Halfling or a wolf, it will sustain you either way.”

He grinned; she barely saw it, trying to process what he’d said.

Wolf?

She…

She was…

“The pain will not change. It will not fade. You will not build a tolerance to it or whatever else your pitiful mind is grasping at. You will face this agony or toil in a slow, miserable death, or bring me the Arkenstone. I will have no use for a wolf once I have it, and far more amusement in observing your attempts to recover.”

A sound caught her attention, a voice— Gimli—

Smaug’s grin turned crooked and even more cruel. “You’d better run. If the Dwarves see you, they’ll likely think that you’ve eaten their new princess, and Dwarven hunters like your brother-in-law have far more practice eliminating such creatures as you than you have evading them.”

He laughed, the laugh too loud, too resonant, piercing her newly-sensitive hearing painfully; reflexively, she bolted away from it, and looked back once she was a small distance away just in time to see him dissolve into smoke, dissipating into the wind.

She tripped over her feet almost as soon as she’d seen that, rolling to a painful stop at the bottom of a hill that didn’t even come close to comparing to the initial transformation.

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, staring at nothing.

Slowly, she replayed the last several minutes—or longer, it must have been longer, for Gimli to have already come looking for her—again and again.

Smaug was alive.

He was a dark sorcerer now, or a necromancer, or something like that.

She’d bring him the Arkenstone over her own dead body.

Her own dead body was going to make an appearance sooner rather than later if she didn’t.

The pain of becoming… becoming this, whatever she was, whatever shape he’d forced her into, was beyond belief; her mind skittered away from the mere memory, still trembling with the aftershocks.

She was going to face that pain again and again if she didn’t bring him the Arkenstone.

Just staying inside wasn’t an option; she hadn’t been able to stomach going more than a month without daylight since the lack had nearly killed her. Two weeks and she was a nervous wreck.

That meant a lifetime of this agony.

Softly, she began to weep, or would have if she were in her own skin; as it was, high, short, keening whines left her, quietly enough that she wouldn’t be heard, she prayed.

Maybe it would be kindest to let the Dwarves find her, let them end this before it really began.

But at the thought, she only wept harder, a yowling, raw edge joining the whines.

She didn’t want to die.

She didn’t want this pain, but she didn’t want to die.

There had to be another way, some loophole she could exploit, or a good mage or чародей or a wizard she could beg for help, or the Wizards, like Radagast and the one the Elves never shut up about, Mithrandir.

Or the Lady of Lothlórien, she was powerful, wasn’t she?

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself onto her feet, all four of them. It was dizzying, the disconnect between what she was and what she should have been, but she did her best to ignore it; she had run easily, before, when it was on instinct, so it followed that if she could rely on her instincts—or her body’s instincts, anyway—she would be able to function well enough to get to Lórien. If she met another Wizard or something on the way, fantastic, but Lórien was the only place she knew for a fact she could find help.

Fixing her eyes on the horizon, she focused more on the idea of running than on moving her legs; after a fumbling start, it worked, her body speeding easily into a run faster than any Hobbit could dream of—

Until she thought too hard about what she was doing and tripped over her own feet.

Stumbling upright again, she shook herself off—uncomfortably aware that she’d always thought dogs looked ridiculous when they dried themselves like that—and started running again, this time managing not to let her thoughts get in the way.

But after a few minutes, a headache began to pulse, low and insistent at the base of her skull.

Ignoring it, she ran harder.

It grew stronger, whines leaving her between pants as the pain throbbed behind her eyes until finally, she fell.

She was awake, clawing at the earth and her own ears in a futile, instinctive effort to make it bloody stop—

But the next thing she was really, fully aware of was the pain easing back to something more manageable, and she slowed to a stop, realizing that she’d been running.

A smell caught her attention, and, reluctantly, she lowered her nose to the ground to get a better sense of it.

It was her scent, she realized, or her wolf-scent, anyway.

She was following her own trail.

Lifting her head, she could see Erebor in front of her, still huge, not even far enough away to be described as being on the horizon— it blocked out the horizon.

Looking back the way she’d run before, she took a few steps along the double-trail and whined involuntarily, low in her throat, as her headache pulsed a bit more strongly.

So she couldn’t go more than a certain distance away from the mountain.

Part of her thought hopefully—blindly—that he’d missed some direction, that if she just circled Erebor, that she’d find a way to escape—

But she squashed it ruthlessly, dropping to lay on the dirt, covering her eyes with her h— paws.

He was a bloody dragon, centuries or millennia old, and who knew whether the more Mortal style of magic he was using now was something he’d been forced into or was something he had a good store of experience in. Regardless of that, he was smart. She couldn’t deny that.

He wouldn’t leave such an obvious weakness.

She was stuck like this.

It was several hours before she forced herself to her feet again. The sun was low on the horizon, though not low enough for her to worry about reaching Erebor in time.

She set off at a lope, not the frantic charge of before, and didn’t find it as taxing as her earlier run. It took longer for her to follow her trail back to the gate she’d left from, but there were still a few weak rays of sunlight left. She couldn’t hear any searchers or guards, but still, she approached the gate cautiously. Now, she could see that the ‘valley’ it was in was hardly worth the title, the feet of the mountain on either side rising some few dozen yards above her by the time they actually met the mountain proper, but at a gentle enough angle that she could probably climb it on her own two feet without much difficulty, and the ground only dipping a bit as it led to the gate.

Or where her nose told her there was a gate, anyway. She couldn’t see anything, no seams in the rock, no discoloration, nothing, although her vision was so odd that it probably could have been electric-blue and she wouldn’t have been able to tell. Breath shaking, she pawed at the stone, only to bolt as she heard a yelped Khuzdûl curse.

She heard the door open, but from the other side of a ridge, huddled against the mountainside, she couldn’t see it, and couldn’t move if her life depended on it. She tried to, screaming silently at herself to go back to the gate and make that guard understand that it was her, she was a wolf, the wolf was her, she was a Hobbit, but it was as though she was a prisoner in her own body.

But it wasn’t her body.

She was trapped in a wolf’s body, and she couldn’t escape.

Almost as soon as she’d thought that, the last bit of sunlight disappeared from the horizon, and all she was aware of was agony.

By the time it faded, the glow of the sunset was completely gone, and still, she couldn’t move, her cheek pressing against the stone and her arm twisted uncomfortably behind her. But even so, she still couldn’t bring herself to move.

It wasn’t the curse. She just couldn’t move.

She was cursed. She’d already known that, but it was so much worse now, her skin still raw from changing back, her dress feeling foreign on her skin. A sob escaped, but she forced it back, forced herself to keep quiet as she trembled, the aftershocks still stinging under her skin like Smaug’s smoke was still in her, needles being carried through her blood, all through her, pain spiking and ebbing like the tides.

The staying quiet wasn’t too difficult; most of being a Hobbit was being quiet, and being still, and staying hidden.

But how could she hide from this? How could a bloody white wolf hide in a green and yellow and grey tundra? There weren’t even farms around the mountain.

She was going to be hunted down and killed like an animal.

And she couldn’t even just stay away from the danger, because then she would just bloody die.

What sort of bloody life was this? Was this what she’d left Khazad-dûm for? Was this worth not being in the Valley—

She wrenched away from the thought, not ready to face it. Agony was agony, but the Valley was its own agony and she wasn’t willing to compare them just yet.

“Hello?”

She jolted at the sound, shaking anew.

The Dwarf—the guard from inside, she assumed—called again after a long pause, not especially sounding as though he expected a response. “Hello? It’s getting cold out here.”

He was right, she realized; not all her tremors were from the day’s events.

Swallowing back the turmoil, she used the mountainside to pull herself to her feet. It was dark enough that she had an excuse to sound rattled, at least, beyond the obvious. She hated being condescended to. “Sorry, I fell asleep!”

She stopped, blinking at nothing as she realized what had just left her mouth.

“Lady Cybele, is that you?”

Frowning, she chose her words carefully, how best to communicate that she was under a curse and she needed someone to contact some sort of magic user immediately. “Yes, I’m sorry again. It got very dark out here, didn’t it?”

What on Arda had she just said? Incredulous, she raised a hand to her mouth, feeling for puppet strings or something similar.

The Dwarf sounded relieved, if anything. “Yeah, a bit. Everyone’s a bit worried about you,” his voice was getting closer; she picked her way carefully through the darkness, one hand on the stone beside her. “I guess you must have been dead tired, not to hear everyone shouting.”

He came into view, the same Dwarf with the same strange braids as had let her out earlier, and smiled at her, openly relieved to find her well. She opened her mouth to tell him what had happened. “I must have been. I suppose the last few days have been a bit trying.”

She was going to bloody kill Smaug. She was going to track him down, as the wolf he’d cursed her to be, stuff a paw down his throat, and then she was going to rip his intestines out and make ribbons out of them.

The Dwarf held a hand out to her, a lantern in the other. “Here, ma’am, I don’t want you to lose your footing now.”

She wanted to smack his hand away and burst into tears; at least then he would know something was wrong. Instead, she took it and smiled gratefully at him. “Thank you. Dwarves must have much better night-vision than Hobbits.”

The worst part was, that wasn’t entirely the curse. Hobbits hid, and right now, she wanted nothing more than to curl up in her room and hide away from the entire world, especially her tears. She never cried in front of people if she could help it, and especially not strangers.

Still, it took a bit of effort to keep a cheerful face, some of it intentional. The longer she chatted with the Dwarf—he insisted on escorting her to the entrance to the royal levels, after introducing himself as Bofur, son of Bufur—the more she just wanted bloody away and there was barely anything magical about that. She hated being the center of attention, she hated being weak in front of other people, she hated feeling exposed, and just at the moment, she felt all three and she was barely keeping herself from breaking into utterly humiliating sobs.

That wouldn’t be the end of the world, since it would bring questions, and she could work with that, but no sooner had that thought crossed her mind than she found it abruptly, inexplicably easier to keep up her feigned composure.

As infuriating as that was, it was useful to know. The curse could only interfere with conscious actions or intentions. If she hadn’t thought that, she probably would have ended up crying.

So she had to go completely on instinct if she was to have any hope of breaking through this.

Oh, joy.

Bofur left with a bow and a respectful ‘your highness’ when they reached the stairs to the royal levels. She took them a bit less easily than she might have a year earlier, her time in the Valley sapping her legs of the strength she’d built over years of endless stairs, but still, it wasn’t long before she was stepping off the flight.

The guards at the top bowed to her a bit more shallowly than Bofur had, but she couldn’t bring herself to care in the slightest.

One ran off as she passed, but she didn’t care about that, either.

Carefully, she navigated to the doors she and Fíli had left several hours prior, the common area just inside empty, though there was still food on the table.

She didn’t have an appetite, but forced herself to sit down and eat a proper meal. She hadn’t eaten since Second Breakfast, and that was going to catch up with her eventually.

That done—she didn’t remember a single thing she’d eaten, and all of it had tasted like ash—she opened the door to her and Fíli’s room, half-hoping to see him waiting for her.

He wasn’t. The fire was nothing but embers, and the lanterns were turned down. There weren’t any plates on the table, and the sheets and blankets on the bed had been changed.

She moved to her wardrobe, hands falling to her laces automatically. But now that she was alone, now she couldn’t stop herself from remembering.

It had been agony. Every cell of her body had been in agony, and she hadn’t even been able to scream for most of it, not after her larynx burst. She hadn’t been able to move, not while her arms and legs and every bone in her body was breaking itself and splintering apart, splintering again and again and building on itself to be larger—she hadn’t noticed at the time, but facing Smaug, he’d looked a completely different size, she must have been huge as a wolf, big as a warg—and even her breath had stopped, her heart—

She froze, holding onto the wardrobe doors for dear life as she remembered, remembered her chest burning as her lungs demanded oxygen even as they ripped apart and she choked on her own blood, but then that stopped, too, because her heartbeat—so deafening in her ears—had stopped, her chest freezing in agony that didn’t even stand out from the agony in every cell, every vein, every single atom of her, but even feeling every single nerve in her body being incinerated and frozen and ripped and smashed and every other sensation possible, she remembered how it had felt to feel her heart stop. She remembered how it had felt to know that she should be dead.

And it had been just the same turning back, except that instead of her bones splintering, they’d smashed down like paper crumbling down on itself, her heart and lungs stopping in order to be squished rather than ripped apart, and it had all been the same utter agony as turning to a wolf in the first place.

And she would have to go through that again and again if she didn’t find a way out of this.

A sob nearly burst from her, only held back by the realization that she was half-naked and standing in full view of the door, and Fíli would be back at some point, it was a miracle he wasn’t back yet—

Hands fumbling, she unfastened her corset, barely able to see through the blur as she kicked her dress away from where it had crumpled at her feet, smothering a whimper as she bit sobs back so fiercely that pain shot out from her lip, spiking even past the aftershocks still scraping through her.

That done, she tried to grab her dressing gown, unable to find the will to properly dress for bed when all she wanted to do was collapse into it, but there were too many blurs in her wardrobe for her to tell which was the right one and it was nothing, it wasn’t even an inconvenience, but it was another needle on top of the mountain of them filling her blood and she had to brace herself heavily on the shelf at the top of the wardrobe to keep from just giving up and bawling like a child—

“Bel!”

The door slammed closed and then Fíli’s voice was just behind her, his hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t let herself think before she spun around and collapsed against him.

His arms wrapped around her, supporting her even as she clung to him, and she just sobbed. She sobbed out the pain, and the fear, and the anger and hate and terror and agony and confusion and everything else that had been a part of this jumbled, tangled, wretched day.

He caught her the moment that her legs gave out, lifting her with one hand under her knees and the other behind her back, and it was pure instinct to loop her arms around his neck, pressing her face to his collarbone. His shirt was soft against her skin, and even that small mercy was enough to redouble her sobs.

For a moment, they were moving, but she didn’t know where and why and she didn’t care— then he was settling them both on the bed, pulling the blankets over them with one hand while his other was cradling her against him. He was shushing her softly, she realized, but there were no admonitions or questions, just her name and nothings like “I’m here” that—like the feeling of his shirt against her skin and now the sheets and how gently he was holding her—only made her cry harder.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been held like this while she cried.

She couldn’t remember the last time that she let herself cry in front of someone else.

As she sobbed, she realized that he was still fully clothed, that he sounded worried, that the guard who’d run off must have been telling him she was there, but how quickly he’d gotten back to their room meant that he must have run back as quickly as the guard had run to tell him, or more so, and the more she realized, the more horrible she felt.

He must have been so worried. Bofur had mentioned that everyone had been looking for her, but she knew how seriously Dwarves took their responsibilities, and she knew that from a Dwarven perspective, it was Fíli’s responsibility to keep her safe. He must have been frantic.

She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but all she could do was sob.

It crossed her mind to use the weakness she’d found—acting on instinct—to slip Fíli a hint, but the thought was gone as quickly as it had come. She’d figure out how to tell him later, right now— right now she was tired, and miserable, and she didn’t want to think, she didn’t want to feel, she just wanted to be held until she wasn’t so miserable anymore.

Still, she repeated the words ‘I’m sorry’ inside her head in a litany while she tried—and failed, mostly—to stop crying.

Eventually, her sobs eased and she began to catch her breath. “You’re alright, I’m here, Bel, I’m not going anywhere, you’re safe—”

He sounded a bit hoarse—it had been more than a few minutes since he’d found her, she realized with a stab of guilt—but that only helped her swallow down her sobs enough to spit it out—

“I’m cursed!”

She burst into fresh sobs; that hadn’t been what she meant to say.

Fíli, to his credit, barely faltered. “What, no, Bel, you aren’t—”

“I am!” Somewhere under the river of misery and tears, she realized that she was only able to tell him the truth because it wasn’t the truth of what had happened in the last few hours.

Still, she didn’t stop herself as she kept blurting things out— it was still all things that were hurting her and things he needed to know, and a tiny, instinctive part of her leaned in to the urge to babble at him between sobs. “There was a mage— A Dwarrowdam— she was jealous— cursed me— become a monster— sunlight— had to leave— Khazad-dûm— leave friends— leave Nyr—”

His name was a broken gasp, and then she couldn’t muster any more words. All she could do was sob. Distantly, she realized that she had slipped in one hint, at least. The first curse hadn’t had anything to do with sunlight.

He kept holding her, cradling her to him, but he didn’t speak.

Eventually, her sobs eased away again, and she quavered, “I’m sorry. You must have been so worried and I didn’t think and I—”

“Shh, shh,” his beard rasped over her skin, his lips pressing against her forehead, nearly her temple with the angle he was at. “I doubt you stayed out so long just to worry me. It sounds like you’ve been carrying this a while.”

Breath hitching, she gripped his shirt a bit more securely. “My family doesn’t know. No one knows except me and her and—”

She couldn’t go on, pain that had nothing to do with the curse blooming in her chest. Her sobs didn’t return, but she shook as she clung to her husband.

It was true, though. Unna had gotten her alone and looked her in the eye while she cast the curse, and Bel had run straight to Nyr after Unna had let her go. He’d been the one to insist on going to Thorin—which she hadn’t argued largely because she wished she’d thought of it—but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go over the specifics again.

Granted, Fíli still didn’t know most of the specifics. But she couldn’t— not now. Not when she was still so raw.

Not as raw as she had been, though. Hiding her frown in his chest, she took stock of herself.

The exposed, fragile feeling she’d had since turning back was fading, more every moment. Even the aftershocks were lessening, needles in her blood turning to a dull ache dulling further as he held her.

It had been at least thirty minutes since turning back before she’d reached their room, if not more, and she hadn’t noticed the pain easing at all.

However long Fíli had been holding her, it wasn’t that long, she didn’t think. And another ten minutes and she wouldn’t feel anything, she thought.

Now the emotional pain outweighed the physical, and that wouldn’t be banished quite so easily.

After another quiet minute or so, Fíli broke the silence softly. “You were outside all this time?”

Eyes burning again, she nodded, pressing her cheek more tightly against him.

“You must be starving.”

He made as if to move, shifting his weight as his arms wrapped more securely around her, and she all but yelped at him. “No, I ate before you came back, I’m not— I don’t want to eat.”

He stilled, leaning back against the pillows again. She could practically taste the indecision in the air, especially as she realized that he might not have eaten dinner, being so worried.

Hating herself for it, she pushed herself away from him, shoving him lightly. “Go eat.” His arms tightened on her, a sound of quiet protest leaving him, but she just shoved him again, voice a bit more harsh than she meant it to be from crying. “Bloody fangs and Goblin clangs, Fíli, stop hovering and take care of your own bloody self, for pity’s sake.”

Twisting her legs around, she got most of herself all on one side of Fíli and shoved him again. This time, slowly, he obeyed, sliding away from her and then out of the bed entirely.

Almost immediately, she ached, the needles in her blood making themselves known for a moment before fading back down again. Still, the bed was warm where he’d been a moment earlier and she curled up in the spot, one hand pressed against the opposite shoulder as she gripped the blankets white-knuckled. The other arm, she wrapped around herself, doing her best to keep from visibly shaking.

It wasn’t the curse. It wasn’t like with Frerin, she wasn’t still seeing Smaug in front of her. She was just— It had been a long, hard day, and now that she was safe, part of her just wanted to run and not stop until she was in Khazad-dûm.

It was ridiculous. She was safe, she was in her own bed, her husband was in the room with her, cutlery clinging faintly as he ate, and he’d protect her if something came in, but that was part of the problem.

She could imagine what he’d do if she turned now all too well.

Smaug was right. The Dwarves would kill her. Maybe they’d give her a trial first, to prove that she was working for the enemy, but they would execute her after that. They’d probably breathe easier after she was dead and tell stories for decades about the witch-girl who’d tried to ensorcel their prince.

She didn’t notice when the sound of cutlery stopped, only coming back to herself when Fíli slid under the covers again, now shirtless as she was; she lunged at him without thinking, one arm over his waist and her face buried in his neck as she tried—again—to stop trembling.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her more securely to him, and shifted position without dislodging her, until they were tangled up together—as they usually ended up—but comfortable.

In his arms, she felt safe, despite knowing what he would do if he knew the truth, and fatigue she hadn’t noticed before abruptly crashed in on her.

She was asleep before she could think twice.

Fíli closed his eyes and focused on holding his wife.

Because that was what she was. It didn’t matter that there had been another man—he knew a Dwarven name when he heard one—and it didn’t matter that she’d been all but forced to Erebor—

No, she had said that she chose to come to Erebor, chose to make leaving Khazad-dûm mean something, chose to make the best choice available to her after her choices had been largely stripped away.

She chose this. She chose him.

But he didn’t know how Hobbits treated marriage, not really. Dwarves— if he met his One the next day, it wouldn’t matter. He was married to Bel and that was the end of it, all the way to the Halls of Waiting—and past that, if Hobbits could go to the Halls of Waiting, he didn’t know—he would only have one wife for the rest of his days, all the days of Arda and the Second Song, and that wife was Bel. Even if he woke up to find her cold in his arms or succumbed in her sleep to whatever curse she was under, he would still be married to her, and only to her, to his dying day.

If her Dwarf came to Erebor the next day and told her that the curse had been lifted, would she leave Fíli for him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was long. And angsty.  
> ...  
> Yeah, not sorry. Also, I took a huge amount of inspiration for the description of her transformation from Aidan/Mitchell's monologue at the beginning of episode two of Being Human. Mostly unconscious, actually; I was in the middle of writing it and I realized I was thinking of something I'd heard someplace, and then it took me like another two hours to realize where it had come from. Anyway, favorite werewolf lore in any show ever. I'm a sadist, can you tell? (Kidding)  
> Anyway, finally, the actual plot begins!


	7. Of the Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for a real conversation

The bed moved under Bel and she grumbled, holding tighter to the pillow as it moved away—

Hands pried hers gently up, lips and hair and metal brushing over her forehead, and she realized blearily that it hadn’t been a pillow she’d been holding onto. Still, the mattress was warm where he’d been, and she curled up in the dip, not ready to wake yet.

Her head was pounding, her eyes felt like sandpaper and lead weights were holding them shut, and her mouth could have been mistaken for the inside of a moldy mead-barrel. And none of it compared to the memory of the day before.

Ghost of a memory, really, still dim and blurry with sleep, and she chased her lingering fatigue, grasping for the dreams that had held her until Fíli had woken her. She’d dreamed of moonlit fields, she thought, bonfires breaking up the darkness, and Fíli holding her.

Remembering that moment of the dream, her lips curled into a smile; however complicated her feelings were for him in the real world, in the dream, they’d been sitting on the bare ground together—well, she’d been lying, him leaning over her with an arm around her back like he’d dipped her in a dance—and his eyes had shone gold and silver and blue in the mingled light, and she’d been completely at ease. Completely content to be in his arms. Nyr had been there, somewhere—she hadn’t seen him, but she knew he’d been there, the way things were in dreams sometimes—and she’d known it, and it hadn’t mattered in the slightest. She genuinely hadn’t cared a whit whether he was there or in Khazad-dûm or sailing West— all that had mattered was that Fíli was holding her, and he was her husband.

Mind clearing as she woke, she clung to that simplicity as long as she could. It was so much more straightforward than the nightmare her life had become in one short day.

She heard the door close, but kept her eyes stubbornly closed until the mattress dipped toward the edge on Fíli’s side. Fíli met her eyes with an unapologetic—but sympathetic—quirk of his lips, and raised the tray in his hands a fraction. “Breakfast in bed.”

Well, she couldn’t say no to that— not to that face any more than the simple fact that she was bloody hungry.

Groaning as she realized how stiff she was, she sat up and stretched. When she realized that she was still shirtless, her cheeks heated so quickly that she felt a bit dizzy, yanking the blankets up to her collarbone.

Fíli just laughed quietly, setting the tray down before going to the table; still flushed, she glanced over to see what he was doing, but got rather very distracted by the way the firelight played over the muscles in his back.

Wrenching her eyes away when he turned around, she grabbed the tray—carefully—and lifted it onto her lap, keeping the blankets just as carefully pinned under her arms so that they wouldn’t fall again.

Fíli climbed up to sit beside her, on top of the blankets, and held out a glass of water. That was what he’d been grabbing, she realized; she took it, nudging the tray closer to him when she realized that there were two loaded plates on it.

He did take the tray, but he only slid it over so that it was balanced on one of his knees and one of hers, large enough that they could still eat without getting crumbs on the sheets if they were careful.

For a few minutes, they ate in silence, other than quiet thanks traded back and forth.

But even with how slowly he’d eaten, he finished before she’d gotten three-quarters through her plate. Setting his fork down, he sighed, the sound quiet and tired.

She stuffed another bite of toast in her mouth. It didn’t dull her guilt.

“Did you know you were going to stay out all day?”

That hadn’t been the first question she expected, but then, she’d barely known what to expect. She finished her toast silently.

He didn’t say anything. He just waited, eyes on the fire.

Taking a sip of water to get the bread-and-butter taste out of her mouth before she started on the eggs, she sighed, too. “No. We said goodbye at the tunnel and it was so awkward— and I started thinking about how strange a situation we’re in, and I—” Remembering the turmoil from the day before, her eyes burned, and she took another gulp of water. Sniffling, she set the glass down, cutting her sausage into bites with shaking hands. “I hadn’t thought about him since before the wedding, almost. And how could I be so—”

She had to set the knife down before she shook so much she sliced her hand open. She didn’t look at him, but she saw his eyes follow the motion out of the corner of her eye.

Quietly, eyes locked on the plate and not seeing it in the slightest, she murmured, “I loved him. Love him. I thought—I planned—to spend my life with him.”

He swallowed audibly before he spoke, voice so low and rough that she could barely understand him. “Nyr.”

The name sent a tremor through her; it took her a moment to remember that he knew it because she’d said it, the night before. Rubbing her eyes, she nodded. “Nyr, son of Nár.”

“Dwarven name.”

“Probably because he’s a Dwarf,” she snapped. Catching herself with a sharp inhale, she scrubbed her hand over her mouth, wishing she could wipe the words away as easily. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head just slightly, but didn’t say anything.

She couldn’t quite look at him. She closed her eyes rather than try. “Unna— the— the ведьма,” she spat, “who cursed me, she was in love with him, too. Rubbish witch, apparently. The only work she could find was tending bar in the market. He’s— He’s a miner, works near that area, he and the men he worked with, they’d go to that bar most days after work. Had been for decades. And then we met and we started spending time together and she started getting jealous.”

Scoffing—the sound caught halfway out of her mouth and turned to a sob—she tipped her head back, watching the firelight play over the canopy above them. “She invited me out for drinks after we announced the betrothal. I thought she was getting over it, moving on. Realizing she didn’t have a chance.” A broken laugh left her, air slicing over her throat as she took a shuddering breath. “And then she shoved me into a wall and looked me in the eye and told me that if I married the man I love, I would become a horrible beast.” She scoffed again, remembering the hatred in Unna’s eyes, the hitch in her breath. “Or, as she put it, become the beast I really was inside.”

Shaking her head, she pushed the tray onto the blankets in front of her, drawing her knees up to her chest. There were no tears. Her breath shook and she felt as though all the needles that had been in her blood the night before had replaced her while she slept— as though she were just a pile of needles in the shape of a Hobbit, and the second she moved a bit too much, felt a bit too much, she’d fall apart and never be able to put herself together again. But there were no tears. Her eyes were too dry, her chest too hollow.

“Thorin called in every mage in Khazad-dûm and swore them to secrecy. They all confirmed the curse was there. None of them could lift it. None of them could even tell me what the cure was.”

He swallowed again. Apart from that, he was so still, he could have been carved from stone. “Is there a cure?”

Feeling herself begin to shake, she only shrugged, a jerky, hopeless lift of her shoulders.

For a few moments, the only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire, almost inaudible under her pulse in her ears. “If you found the cure…”

He trailed off, then took a deep breath; guessing at what he would ask, she shook her head. “No.”

His breath left him in a quick exhale. “What?”

Steeling herself as much as a pile of needles could, she turned her head enough to meet his eyes, though she nearly looked away again when she did. There was shock in his eyes, but there was more, more than she could understand. Almost more than she could bear. But she took another shaking breath and repeated, “No.” She laughed, a bit bitterly, to her ears, but she didn’t check her tongue. “It would be just like fate to chuck the cure in my lap now that it’s too late, but it is too late. I made my choice. What’s done is done and what’s past is past, and there’s no changing it just to suit us.”

Eyes falling with her mood, she faced forward again, setting her chin on her knees. “This is probably for the best, anyway. If it hadn’t happened, the Valley would still be making do with Bounders.”

“With what?”

A faint smile flickered over her, only lasting a moment before winking out again. “It’s what the border guards in the Valley are called. Mostly, they just maintain the boundaries and safeguard the secret. Not that that’s really possible anymore.”

The shift in his weight made the mattress dip slightly, but even when she felt warmth behind her, she didn’t expect his hand to settle on her back. The shiver that spread from the spot was only partly from surprise; she’d noticed his callouses before, but when she wasn’t looking at him, when the only contact between them was his palm and fingertips resting along her spine, his rough skin on hers was very nearly all she could think about.

The shiver only lasted a moment, but her stomach continued to quiver as he spoke, low and rough and far too close for her sanity— or was he too far away?

“Is that why you didn’t tell me before? Because it was a secret?”

Despite how quietly he’d spoken, his voice was no colder than his hand, everything about him seeming like nothing quite so much as the fire across from her, banked and low but ready to blaze up at a moment’s notice. She wasn’t sure what he would do when he blazed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She wasn’t sure she didn’t.

Forcing herself to focus—her self-recrimination at the realization that she’d all but forgotten everything that wasn’t her husband again helped with that, almost as much as the guilt gnawing at her gut did—she shook her head, tightening her arms around her knees. “Because it hurt so badly to think of it, and because I didn’t want you to think that you were getting a prisoner of war instead of a wife. I chose this. I chose to come here, I chose to marry you, I chose to make a life in Erebor. I didn’t want you to doubt that before we had a chance to know each other—”

Hearing herself, she laughed once, more brokenly than before. “So much for that plan. I’m sorry. None of this is fair on you, but I could have gone about it so much better than I have.”

He hadn’t moved while she spoke, but at her last words, his thumb stroked over her skin, and another shiver stole away any further words she might have offered. For several moments, neither of them spoke, neither moved, but for his thumb still moving slowly over her spine. She watched the fire crackle, low in the hearth, and tried to think of anything but throwing a log on.

Breaking the silence quietly, he murmured, “I’m glad you’ve told me now. I can’t say that I wish you’d told me earlier—” A half-laugh, half-scoff not so much unlike hers left him, but his voice was only lower when he went on. Her pulse was beginning to be very hard to ignore. “I can’t argue that not much of this is fair to me, but I don’t think much is fair to you, either. Maybe you could have gone about it better, but I don’t know that I could have handled myself with half as much dignity as you have, if I’d been in your position.”

That sounded… Hope and fear warring in her gut, she spoke as loudly as she dared— so, in a murmur. “You aren’t angry?”

His thumb stilled. Just when she was starting to worry that he was, after all, he turned his hand slowly over and ran the backs of his fingers over her spine, from the middle down to her tailbone and then up to her neck, lingering there. His thumb worried the curls there, the rest of his fingers solid and heavy against the nape of her neck, solidly there in a way she wouldn’t have expected to be half so reassuring as it was. “Not angry,” he murmured, finally, “still considering. That wasn’t anything that I could have guessed at.”

She might have nodded, if it wouldn’t have risked dislodging his hand, and she decidedly did not want that. “It’s quite a bit to process.”

He hummed an acknowledgement, but the sound was a bit distracted. She wasn’t sure how long they sat there, her tension gradually draining away, before he drew away. “I should grab your second breakfast.”

As much as she wanted to pull him back and not let him leave again, she could see the sense in that. But she couldn’t quite face him yet. “I’ll be in the washroom.”

She darted into the washroom too quickly to be doing anything but fleeing, and the hard knot in Fíli’s gut coiled that much tighter.

He’d meant what he said. He wasn’t angry. That wasn’t quite the right word.

Anger was part of it, anger that she’d been forced into this, anger that both of them had been pushed into a situation like this, but none at her. He was angry at this dam-mage, Unna, for cursing her rather than let a man who wasn’t interested be happy without her. He was angry at— the world, he supposed, for letting a mess like this happen in the first place.

Dread was part of it, of this curse that she was under. He’d been a bit relieved to hear the terms of it, that she was safe from it now that she’d married a man she didn’t love, but— Magic was tricky, magic born of passion all the more so. She’d said that this mage wasn’t much of a witch, which meant that the curse—if it was strong enough to defy removal—had been tied to the witch’s jealousy and rage, the strength of it coming directly from the depth of her emotion. Such things didn’t usually permit avoidance. Jealousy especially, which he was only now fully appreciating.

Because that was most of it. A harsh, bitter, hurting jealousy roiling in his gut and pulling every muscle tight as though it were coiling to strike. He wouldn’t have expected this so early— Dwarves were rightly known to be jealous of what they held dear, but they’d known each other all of three days.

But she was his wife, and a few hours previous, she’d been sobbing in his arms over another man. She was his wife, and she was in pain because of the actions of a woman who—from Bel’s account—had acted cruelly and without any true justification. She was his wife, and she never would have been if it hadn’t been for that curse.

Forcing himself to move slowly and calmly, he took hold of the tray and walked out into the common room. Too late, he realized that he was only wearing drawers, but the room was empty anyway.

He wouldn’t have much cared if it wasn’t; his pulse was deafening, slow as it was.

Deliberately, he loaded as much food as before onto the tray, removing what she hadn’t finished eating before, and snagged Kíli’s juice for her as an afterthought. She seemed to like it.

And still, all he could think about was her skin under his hand, her bare back close enough to taste, her curls gilded by the firelight where they weren’t squashed somewhat. They’d blocked his view of her face, but even so, he’d ached for her.

He was still aching for her.

He set the tray carefully down on the table, still moving with deliberate slowness. He could feel his hands wanting to shake, his feet wanting to carry him straight over to the washroom to— he didn’t let himself finish the thought, but he didn’t really need to, not with how much his blood was already pounding, every thought in his head muddy but those of her, and he wondered, abruptly, bitterly, if this was how she’d felt about her ‘Nyr’. He wondered if this was how Nyr felt about her.

He wondered if she’d thought of him while they were together.

Bel’s hands shook as she dried them, and when she raised them to her neck. Her fingers were cold, she realized dimly, but her neck was hot. Her cheeks were hot, but she didn’t need her hands to feel that; putting distance between her and Fíli hadn’t done anything but made it harder for her not to think of his skin on hers.

Dwarves’ skin was so much hotter than Hobbits’, just naturally. How much hotter than hers would his feel now? Would it feel like nothing? Or would he be burning as much as she was, his lips, his tongue—

Pulse throbbing in her neck, her chest, her—well, everywhere she wanted him—she swallowed a groan. She’d just have to say that she was overheated from the fire or something, and maybe if she drank another hundred glasses of water, she’d cool down enough to actually taste what she was eating.

Taking a deep, steadying—supposedly—breath, she pushed the door open and stepped back into their room, her pulse still drowning out the fire even as Fíli finished setting a fresh log on it.

She swallowed hard, seeing him, and for a moment, her mind was entirely, maddeningly blank.

That moment was long enough for him to close the distance between them in quick, long strides and yank her into a harsh, hard kiss. She couldn’t have moved an inch if she tried—his hands were cupping her face, holding her to him as his lips and his teeth and his tongue slanted over hers—but her feet moved on their own as he kept moving, backing her up.

She couldn’t think of where they were going, couldn’t think of what to do with her hands, couldn’t think at all, shock dulling her even as her pulse flared higher still; her eyes were still open, but his weren’t, a furrow deep in his brow with the intensity of his expression— she couldn’t have said what his expression was if her life depended on it, it might have been anger, it might have been worry, it might have been almost anything, but she didn’t want to think anyway, not with his hands on her skin and his mouth on hers and fangs and clangs, but she’d been right, his skin was still scorching compared to hers and she just wanted more of it.

She collided with the washroom wall, a surprised noise muffled by the kiss, and a low, hungry sound rumbled from Fíli’s chest in response. Even then, he still didn’t stop moving, pressing her against the wall with the simple, immovable weight of him even as his hands dropped to her thighs and lifted.

Both of them were breathing heavily, sweat clinging to their skin, but she couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. He’d settled with his forehead pressed against her cheek, his breath hot on her neck, and the only complaint she might have made was that the rug wasn’t all that comfortable, now that she didn’t have him keeping her mind elsewhere. Still, for a few minutes, she hadn’t thought of a thing but him, had all but forgotten the very existence of curses and agony and dragon-wizards and places on Arda that weren’t their bedroom.

She was still in love with Nyr, and would likely be until her dying day, but she couldn’t help but love Fíli a little bit for that kindness. For sweeping away all the pain and grief and terror of the day before.

With a tremendous effort, she managed to move her head just far enough away that she could face Fíli, still close enough that her nose brushed against his brows as she did. She still had her eyes closed—there was no point in opening them when all she’d be able to see was his forehead—but she could still feel his breath skating over her throat and his heartbeat against her elbow and the way his arm had tightened around her waist when she moved.

Not willing to examine the warmth in her chest too closely, she let herself smile anyway, and laid a tiny kiss to the middle of his nose, the tip of it brushing her chin as she did. He huffed, lightly, but she heard the smile in his voice, tired as it was. “Wha’ was that for?”

Letting her head lean against his, she didn’t try to banish her smile, though she still wasn’t willing to examine it too closely. “Why does it have to be for anything? Can’t I just kiss my husband because I want to?”

Chuckling quietly, he pressed his lips to the underside of her jaw for a moment. “Kiss me anytime you like. I’m not going to complain.”

Her stomach growled before she could reply, and they both laughed. He sat up—the air was cold compared to him, and her eyes opened as she shivered—and shifted to be on his knees before sliding an arm under her knees and back and picking her straight up.

She yelping, clutching his shoulders. “Fíli!”

He just laughed, getting easily to his feet. “Come on, I carried you like this last night.”

Most of everything that had happened in the evening was a blur, but now that he said that, she did remember something like that. Still, she gave him a half-hearted glare. “You were already standing last night— How was I supposed to know you wouldn’t drop me just now?”

The look he gave her at that sent her blood straight down again, and she swallowed thickly.

“I should think that by now, you would know that I’m perfectly able to carry you to bed without any mishaps.” Her stomach growled again, and the intensity vanished from his eyes in a blink, hidden under a smile. “Other than delaying the meal a few seconds.”

How completely he was able to switch moods, frankly speaking, made her jealous. But she didn’t say anything, just let go of him as he set her on the bed. Especially since she had a very, very nice view of him as he fetched the food.

On turning around with the tray in his hands, he laughed to see her. “Are you ogling me?”

Her cheeks heated, but it was too late to pretend otherwise, anyway, and she flicked her eyes over him as he set the tray beside her. “Quite a lot to ogle.”

The noise that left him at that was equal parts startled and strangled, but there was a bit of a swagger to his walk as he went back to the table for the jug of juice. The fire- and lantern-light played over his muscles as he moved, and she didn’t feel the slightest bit of shame in leaning up a bit to see him a bit more fully.

Her flush did deepen when he turned, smirking, and caught her eye, but she just pulled the tray onto her lap and bent her head over her food.

They chatted as she ate, her offering tidbits of commentary between bites as he detailed the work Balin had pulled him away for the day before, a new treaty between Erebor and the Woodland Realm that was to be implemented in a matter of days and had been amended at the last minute by Thranduil in a flagrantly unfair abuse of Elven speed. Balin was still scrambling to pull the agreement back to something at least moderately fair to both parties, but it would take up most of Fíli’s afternoons until they were actually able to finalize it.

He flushed, abruptly. “I’m sorry if I’m boring you. You’d probably rather hear more about the mountain.”

“No, I wouldn’t!” Realizing how that might have sounded, she qualified hurriedly, “No, I am interested in hearing more about Erebor, too, but this is interesting, and important, besides. I just wish I could offer more intelligent commentary, but wordplay’s never been my strong suit.”

Fíli just waved off the apology. “It’s fine, I’m just glad you don’t mind hearing about it. But that’s right, you work more with your hands. You must be missing your work,” his expression fell, somewhat, half-apologetic and half-pitying, “I’m sure you could start in your workshop in the afternoons if you like.”

Stifling a snort, she teased, “Only in the afternoons?”

His eyes widened in a wince, she assumed because he was realizing he’d made it sound a bit like she was only allowed to be busy when he was, but she didn’t give him a chance to respond. Considering he’d outright said he couldn’t read her well, it had been a bit mean, in retrospect.

“I’m just teasing.” He visibly relaxed, and she laughed. “But I think I’d like that. Maybe Gimli could show me there this afternoon? I never did get a chance to see her yesterday.”

Remembering why that had been, her heart dropped like a stone, but he touched her cheek, surprising her out of the funk before she’d even really gotten in it. Smiling gently, he drew his hand back to her shoulder, resting the backs of his fingers against her upper arm. “I can arrange that.”

She returned the smile, ignoring the renewed warmth in her chest, and went back to her meal. He described her workshop as she finished eating— both workshops, really, as she would have a temporary one two levels down until her space in the royal workshops was fully renovated for her, complete with detailed directions in case she needed to get there on her own.

Given that Gimli would be taking her there, she didn’t really see the need for such, but she didn’t stop him. She was starting to get the impression that he was scrambling for something to talk about when they still barely knew each other, and she appreciated the effort. Besides which, he had even more little throwaway comments about the level she’d be working on than he did for the route to the exit, and she wouldn’t have missed those for anything.

Once she’d finished eating, she handed him the tray with a smirk; he mock-bowed and carried it to the table along with the jug and the now-empty glass. Remembering her abandoned panties, she leaned over the side of the bed to look for them, only to laugh as she saw the fabric beside them. “Did you actually rip apart your underwear?”

“What? Oh.” She just laughed harder, hiding her face in the blankets over her feet. After a moment, he joined her, his voice nearing as he came back to the bed. “Well, in my defense, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the moment, or— Oh.”

That had been an entirely different tone than the rest, almost wounded. Laugh dying in her throat, she straightened to see him staring at her shoulder wide-eyed and dismayed. “What is it?”

Eyes rising to hers, he gave a tiny shake of his head, expression almost guilty. “I didn’t realize that would— that would hurt you.”

“What?” Bewildered, she twisted her head to look at her shoulder, only for her eyes to be pulled further back. “Oh—” Craning her head, she could still only see a sliver of her back, but it was enough for her to tell that nearly all of her skin was rubbed raw. “Oh, that is— that is quite the rug-burn.”

Tentatively, he reached out; when she met his eyes, he froze, but she only turned a bit further to give him more room. He kept moving after a moment, ghosting his fingers over her shoulder blade. Even that little stung, and she couldn’t help a wince.

He snatched his hand back, paling several shades— given that he’d already been ghostly, it made him look almost grey. “Mahal, I’m so sorry—”

“Fíli, it’s a rug-burn. It’s not even as bad a sunburn.”

“Still, it hurts, and I— Mahal, I—”

He was still paling, beginning to draw away, and she reached out without thinking, grabbing his wrist. “Fíli, I’m fine.”

He’d stilled as soon as she grabbed him, though she knew full well that he could pull free if he wanted. It probably wouldn’t even take him any effort, with what Dwarves were like. “I hurt you.”

“The rug hurt me, and am I complaining?”

That stilled him, his head jerking back a fraction as he gaped at her.

Holding his eyes, she closed some of the distance between them, still holding onto his wrist; her fingers didn’t even come close to closing around it, but she could feel his pulse, steady and reassuring, even if it was a bit fast. “I do not blame you and I am not mad at you, Fíli. It’ll be a bit uncomfortable for a few hours or a day, and then I’ll be fine. And now we know better, we won’t—” Her composure evaporated in a heartbeat, her cheeks flaming as she fumbled her way through the sentence she’d walked into. “Won’t— do— do that— there.”

Her inability to actually say what they’d done did at least seem to break through to Fíli, his eyes dancing as he very obviously held back a laugh at her expense.

Scoffing, she rolled her eyes, still blushing. “Oh, shut up.”

He did laugh at that, and after a moment, she joined him, a bit helplessly. She was cursed twice-over, she was being held hostage by a mad, dragon-wizard, and she was in a kingdom she didn’t know surrounded by people she’d never met. But for the moment, it was enough to laugh with her husband. Everything else wouldn’t be solved so easily, but…

It helped, to laugh.

She’d needed that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I got Stardew Valley, and it's really fun.  
> ...  
> ...  
> I've barely stopped playing for three days send help
> 
> More seriously, updates might be slow for a while; I'm kind of in a writing slump at the moment, but on the plus side, I think I'm on an upward trend now, so there's hope for finding writing time soon.  
> (Russian) Notes: 1) Both 'Nyr' and 'Nár' are from the same Norse poem that Tolkien got the Company's names from (which I can't remember the name of off the top of my head). 2) 'Ведьма' (= 'vEHd'muh') is Russian for 'witch', although there are a lot of synonyms for different flavors of magic-users. A lot of those will probably end up in the story at some point, so I'll give them when they do. But 'ведьма' is especially similar to 'witch' because it has a similar flavor to the English, in that it can also mean hag, shrew, etc. So that tells you about how well Bel thinks of Unna, right there.  
> Actually, I forgot to define a word in the last chapter. 'Чародей' (=charadEY [not 'kar', 'char']) means sorcerer, enchanter, or wizard. Pretty neutral word, which is how Hobbits use it in this 'verse; it's your basic run-of-the-mill enchanter, although more benign than neutral, really. Think most background wizards at Hogwarts. They wouldn't hurt you unless you attacked first, they'll help you if you ask, and maybe if you obviously need help, they'll offer. But they're not exactly heroes.  
> Anyway, 3) The rug-burn bit at the end is mostly because Fíli needs to recognize how much more delicate Hobbits are. But also to realize that 'delicate' doesn't equate to 'wrap in cotton and keep on a shelf/vault'.  
> But yeah, Stardew is awesome and absolutely do not get it if you plan on accomplishing anything in the near future.  
> Увидимся и á bientôt!


	8. Of Technology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Antonio Banderas voice* And the headcanons kept rolling in/ on every side...

Fíli leaned back in his chair, scrubbing his hand over his face. Hours of talking and debating and refining, and there was still a better chance that Thranduil would reject the newest draft out of hand than not.

Still, they had a few more days before it had to be finished.

Taking his leave as Balin waved him off, he gave a respectful nod to him and his under-scribes, and did his best to keep his pace to a quick walk, rather than a run.

Kíli was nearing the royal wing as Fíli did, dressed for the outdoors despite the hour; Fíli frowned, picking up his pace a fraction. “What’s going on?”

Kíli shook his head once, grimly. “Reports of a wolf around the mountain, a big one. I’ve been out all day, tracking it, but it looked like it left the same way it came.”

Fíli exhaled slowly as they moved into the suite. “Must be huge, if you went to that much effort.”

He was half-expecting Kíli to brush it off, but instead the hunter met his eyes with utter solemnity. “It’s big as a warg, Fee.” Inhaling sharply, Fíli looked for any sign that Kíli was exaggerating, but there was nothing. “It was nosing around the north gate yesterday—” Fíli froze, feeling as though he’d been seized by some great, invisible enemy; Kíli kept going. “The guard there heard it scratching at the door, but it was gone when he opened the door to check.”

Finally, Kíli looked over his shoulder at him, slowing to a stop with a frown. Fíli had to swallow thickly before he could speak, his mouth too dry for the first attempt. “That’s the gate Bel used.”

Kíli’s jaw firmed, and he nodded shortly. “I know. The guard said he thought she hadn’t noticed the wolf at all, so he didn’t say anything about it. Didn’t want to scare her.”

Fíli couldn’t respond, couldn’t even move, could only stand there and stare at Kíli and wait for him to break out in a grin and tell him it was all a prank and wasn’t he an idiot for falling for it?

But he didn’t. He bid Fíli a quiet goodnight and disappeared into his room, and Fíli still couldn’t move.

Bel had been asleep, or at least that was what she’d told the guard; Fíli wouldn’t have been surprised if actually, she’d just been so upset that she hadn’t heard any of the searchers. But asleep or sobbing or whatever else, she’d been out there while a feral wolf prowled around—

Fíli’d fought wargs before, they were huge, and suddenly he could barely breathe, imagining Bel—she was so much smaller than a Dwarf, and slighter, and he doubted she could fight at all—being snapped at by a wolf so large that she was nothing but a bite to it.

He was in front of the door to their room before he knew he was moving, but then he saw his hand come up to open it and realized he was shaking. Stilling, he forced himself to breathe, to calm. He’d been trained for a lifetime in how to keep from betraying his emotions when he didn’t want to— he could do this. He had to do this. If she wasn’t afraid now, the best way to send her into a panic would be to go in fully panicking himself.

Once he could take a breath without feeling as though he’d shake to pieces in another moment, he went inside. She was sitting at her vanity, hands buried in her hair; he lost his train of thought rather thoroughly for a moment.

Shaking himself, he closed the door; she startled, slightly, at the sound and turned to look at him over her shoulder. Her face went from surprised to concerned in a blink. “What’s wrong?”

Still keeping his breathing carefully even and his bearing deliberately relaxed, he moved to lean against the door to the washroom; she followed the motion, brows drawing further together as she watched him, but she didn’t say anything further. He cleared his throat preemptively. “Kíli just let me know that there was a wolf spotted outside the mountain yesterday.”

Her eyes flew wide, though she showed little other reaction. Still, it wasn’t hard to spot the fear in her face. “Near the mountain?”

Grimacing, he nodded. Part of him wanted to brush it off and keep her blissfully ignorant, but from what she’d said about Hobbit needs, it was only a matter of time before she left Erebor’s protection again. “It was pawing at the gate you left through.”

Her jaw tightened, her eyes dropping to the vanity.

Exhaling slowly, he shook his head. “I know that’s the closest exit to here, but I think you should use the one a few levels further down from now on. It’s one of the main thoroughfares— there’ll be guards, other people, it won’t be so isolated—”

“No—” Scoffing lightly, she smiled at him, but there was something fragile about her expression. “Fíli, I didn’t see any wolf, I didn’t even hear one. I saw well enough yesterday that there’s hardly anything at all around the mountain, let alone anything for a wolf to eat. It’ll get hungry and be on its way soon enough, there’s no need to worry.”

He could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Of course there’s a need to worry! Bel, this wolf is big as a warg— if it had come across you yesterday—”

“But it didn’t, and it won’t.” She stood as she spoke, setting her hands on his chest. Despite the worry still thrumming through him, her touch dulled that, something about it more calming than he would have ever expected. She held his eyes, gaze steady and earnest and refusing to let him panic. “I’m here, I’m safe, and nothing short of Smaug himself could touch me.”

At that, he laughed, mirthlessly. “I think the entire bloody world celebrated when that thing finally died.”

But she didn’t laugh with him. “Is he dead? I hadn’t heard that anyone found his body.”

Frowning, he shook his head. “No, no one ever has, but nothing could have survived its wounds.”

She hummed softly, noncommittally. “Were the discussions fruitful?”

“What? Oh,” he remembered that there was a world beyond the two of them with a jolt, “Yeah, I hope so. I’ll be dreaming about that bloody treaty if we keep hashing it out much longer.”

The corner of her mouth lifted in an impish smirk. “I certainly hope you have more appealing things to dream about than a piece of parchment.”

Grinning, he let his hands fall to her hips. “I think I could find one.”

Her smirk widened, but she pushed him gently away; he humored her, stepping back. “I doubt you’ve eaten since lunch.”

“No,” he agreed wistfully. “You?”

She shook her head. “Just before you got here.”

His heart jumped in startled, tentative hope. “Keep me company? I’d love to hear about your work.”

She blinked at him. “Really?”

His heart fell a bit to hear that, hear her surprise, but he just smiled. “Of course. Besides, I’ve rambled to you about my work enough in the last couple days, it’s only fair that you return the favor.”

“Oh, thank you, that’s very generous.” He couldn’t keep from laughing at her deadpan delivery, and this time she laughed with him.

She gestured to the table, and he realized that there was food waiting for him; they took their seats easily, and she propped her elbows on the table after pouring herself some cranberry juice; he almost forgot to start eating, distracted by the realization that he was truly glad to see her so relaxed with him. “So Gimli came by a few minutes after you left and helped me pick out a dress—”

“You needed help?” The tease slipped out before he could stop it, but she glared playfully at him and went on as though it was normal for them.

Still, now he’d noticed the dress she was still wearing, a mostly-white thing with a leafy, viney pattern that did nothing to disguise her curves or pull his attention away from the low cut of the front— well, he was having a hard time remembering to eat.

“—And then we went to the workshop. Gimli was nice enough to keep me company when she saw I hadn’t been expected other people to be there, and doubly nice enough to play assistant when I realized I’d be starting from scratch,” she laughed.

At that, he managed to wrench his eyes up to hers, frowning at the backhanded insult. “Erebor has every luxury possible.”

“Dwarven luxuries,” she corrected, not unkindly, “which stand to benefit rather greatly from Hobbit ingenuity. I’m hoping that the king will be more willing to retrofit the mountain than Thorin was,” she confided. “It took five years of arguing to get him to see sense— one to get him to allow us to outfit our designated sections and another four to even consider letting individual Dwarves contract with us. Still, Gimli was impressed when I told her about everything, so I think there’s hope. Besides, I wasn’t Thorin’s granddaughter-in-law.”

His brows had risen as she spoke, more bemused than anything else. “You’re passionate about this, then?”

Half-wincing, she smiled tightly. “It’s a bit selfish, I’m afraid. Being back in the Valley for a few months reminded me how many things I’d gotten used to doing without, and I’d rather not get used to that again.”

Remembering his plate, he asked quickly before turning back to his food, “Doing without what sort of things?”

She shrugged, idly running her thumbnail along the side of her index finger. “Proper lighting, books instead of scrolls, watches, clocks, barometers…” He was just staring at her, bewildered by the foreign words; breaking into a sudden grin, she shrugged again, unapologetic. “You see what I mean about starting from scratch?”

Forcing himself to close his mouth, he still grumbled, “Could put it a little less condescendingly.”

She gave him a flat glare. “Alright, be offended if you will, but if I—in my own workshop—have to cobble together a dynamo out of scraps of copper wire, an old lodestone—my own lodestone, thank you, which I had to come back here to grab—broken axe-handles, and a borrowed locket for a hand-crank, I reserve the right to refer to such measures however I like.”

He only blinked at her through a frown, but evidently that was enough for her to understand. “Right, sorry. Dynamos are a sort of electrical generator, meaning they generate electricity. And that…” She frowned a bit, pursing her lips. “I suppose the only way to define electricity is by lightning. I know Dwarves haven’t done much research into it.”

Swallowing his mouthful, he couldn’t help the incredulous note in his voice. “Are you trying to say that you can harness lightning?”

The look she shot him was unimpressed at best and condescending at worst, but she gentled it a moment later, bobbing her head. “Not really. Lightning is made of electricity, but saying that generators ‘harness lightning’ isn’t any more accurate than saying Dwarven forges harness magma.”

After considering the image for a moment, he conceded with a nod. “What can electricity be used for, then?”

“All sorts of things. Lighting is the first thing that comes to mind. We’ve had electric lighting in the Valley for centuries; I hadn’t even seen someplace lit only by firelight until I arrived at Khazad-dûm. Then heating, and cooking. Anything with electricity running through it can get rather hot, but that does make it useful for controlled, sustained temperatures. Then lifts— those are platforms that can be raised and lowered along a vertical track without any sort of pulley system. And teleprinters would be the next most useful, I think.” Gaze turning distant as she mused aloud, her thumb and index finger pinched loosely together. “Those are apparatuses for long-distance communication. Wonderfully useful for getting written messages from one end of the Valley to the other, but I do wonder sometimes if it isn’t possible to send more complicated signals. I did some very interesting experiments with sound in Khazad-dûm, and I think if I had a bit of time and help, I could find a way to convert the sound waves to electromagnetic—”

She cut herself off with a blushing huff. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m sorry.”

Shaking his head, Fíli set his fork down on his now-empty plate. “You mean to tell me that you can light rooms without an open or covered flame, make stairs and ladders all but obsolete, and communicate instantaneously across miles of distance?”

The color in her cheeks only deepened; she averted her eyes, mouth twisting. “It sounds like a fairy story when you say it like that.”

Shaking his head in grinning disbelief, he wished he was close enough to kiss her. “Well, apparently, Hobbit technology is something straight out of a fairy story, so you’ll just have to forgive me for being amazed.”

Meeting his eyes, she offered a crooked smile. “And that’s just the electrical bits. You won’t believe what we can do with gears and springs.”

He just laughed. “I’d love to hear it!”

A yawn nearly split his skull open a scant moment after the words left his mouth, and she snickered. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

Much as he didn’t want to, he had to concede that. It had been a long day.

But as they stood from the table, she stilled, biting her lip. “Although…”

He blinked at her. “Yes?”

She looked at him from under her lashes, the firelight gilding her silhouette, and his mouth went abruptly dry. “If you’d like to see a Hobbit invention… Help me with my dress?”

He couldn’t have spoken if he tried; he managed to nod, though, and she turned to face away from him. It was reminiscent of their wedding night, except that he knew that she wanted this, and he knew what he was doing.

Sort of. The strange little metal tab at the top of her dress along her spine did puzzle him for a moment. Tracing a teasing line over the skin above the fabric, he tugged at the tab, blinking as it split the fabric with a quiet, metallic buzz. “What on Arda…?”

He kept pulling the tab, able to see now that there were metal spines lining the split in the fabric. She turned her head to smirk at him from over her shoulder. “It’s called a zipper. It takes two rows of metal teeth and laces them together. The teeth are all shaped so that once they’re joined, it’s impossible to separate them without damaging either the zipper or the fabric.”

Huffing out a quiet laugh, he pulled the zipper down until the resistance told him he’d reached its limits; that left her dress open from below her hips all the way up, and all she had to do was shimmy her shoulders a bit and the dress fell away entirely. Swallowing, he brushed his knuckles over the laces of her corset. “Need help with this?”

She shivered, but shook her head. “No, it fastens in the front.”

Her hands raised to her waist, and he touched her arm lightly. “Wait.” She stilled, turning her head slightly toward him, though not far enough for her to see him, he thought. “Let me?”

Her neck moved as she swallowed; hands falling to her sides, she nodded. He moved around to her front, eyes following the lower hem of her corset, taking in the delicate embroidery lining the fabric, some sort of flowers that he didn’t recognize. The center was occupied by a shining hook and eye, smaller and more delicately made than any he’d seen before, the first of a long line that stretched up to—

He’d already known that he’d been very, very blessed in the wife chosen for him. But standing there with his wife’s corset making her bust all the more impossible to ignore and the firelight playing, hypnotizing, over her skin, it was all he could do not to audibly thank Eru.

Mentally shaking himself, he set his hands on her hips before tracing his fingers up and together to meet in the middle at the lowest of the hook and eyes. A quiet breath left her, but she didn’t speak or stop him, and when he glanced up, she only returned his gaze, eyes dark. Letting his eyes fall back to his task—with a brief, lingering detour above her corset entirely—he loosed the fastenings one after the next, moving slowly up the thick fabric. Her breathing, shallow at first, didn’t deepen half so much as it quickened as he moved further and further up. The way that made her bust move was absurdly distracting, and easily slowed his progress by a full half by itself.

Finally, he undid the last hook and eye, and the corset fell away, leaving only her usual shift covering her. He didn’t move his hands away, though, cupping her through the fabric as her corset had been a moment earlier, and she gripped his tunic with a shuddering gasp.

He froze, thinking that he’d overstepped, but she didn’t stop him, just looped her hands around his neck and pulled him down into a kiss. It was only brief, but she leaned her forehead against his for a long moment before he opened his eyes. She opened hers a moment later, looking at him through her lashes the same half shy, half nervous way she had when she asked him to help with her dress. “Let me?”

He didn’t understand at first; then her hands fell to the laces of his tunic. Swallowing hard, he nodded.

Her eyes fell to his chest, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from her face. He didn’t straighten up from the slight bend she’d pulled him into, aware that the height difference between them was enough that she’d likely need the help; it also kept their faces closer than if he’d straightened. Her fingers tugged lightly at the fabric as she pulled the laces loose, her head tilting slightly to and fro as she worked. Now and then, her eyes rose a fraction, not quite high enough to meet his eyes, but he guessed that she could tell he was watching her, as the color in her cheeks deepened a shade or two each time.

His tunic was only the first layer he wore, almost more of a light, stylized overcoat than a true tunic. Once she unlaced that, he shrugged it off as much as he could without taking his focus from her; she pushed it the rest of the way off his arms, and it fell to the ground with nothing more than a dull _thump_. Under that were another tunic, snugger but still fairly loose, and an undershirt beneath that, soft, loose cotton. Her fingers ghosting over the folds of it where it was tucked into his trousers, she smiled, that quicksilver bloom with that little huff he’d heard a few times.

He’d say he wasn’t sure why warmth bloomed in his gut at the sound, but it would be a lie.

“Dwarven weaving, or Mannish?”

A tiny smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he watched her, goosebumps spreading as the fabric brushed against his abdomen. “Dwarven.”

Watching her so closely, he saw the shiver that ran through her; the warmth in his gut deepened into a dull heat. Tipping her head to the side, her smile turned teasing. “Not as fine as Valley muslin.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that, though it was a bit distracted. “What sort of image would it give for a prince of Erebor to wear foreign clothing?”

“I suppose I’ll just have to beg a few cousins to come and teach Erebor’s weavers a thing or two.”

“Later.”

Her eyes still on his, her smile fell away, color darkening as he held her gaze. Her hand shifted, laying her palm flat against his abdomen; a tremor ran through him, fingers itching to return the touch. Slowly, she pulled the end of his belt free one-handed, but needed both to actually unbuckle it. Not moving her eyes from his, she let the leather slither free and fall to the ground, then knelt to unbuckle his boots; he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten to remove them.

She didn’t pull his boots off, just stood again and unbuttoned his trousers, fingers moving lightly over the fabric but all the same, he felt every brush of her skin as though there was nothing between them. The heat in his gut only spiked lower and lower with every touch.

Her hands tugged at his undershirt until the front edge was free of his trousers, then slid underneath, over his skin; his breathing stuttered, but she didn’t move away. On the contrary, she moved forward, her hands sliding around to settle over his hips as she stood on the toes of his boots, just enough space between them to be tantalizing, and not enough to satisfy him. Eyes dark, she murmured, “I think it’s time you took those things off, don’t you?”

She barely weighed anything, but he wasn’t about to move her away for anything. Somehow—he had no idea how—he managed to pull his feet out without dislodging her or moving back, and they repeated the process for his socks. The motion left his trousers around his knees, and he stepped out of them gladly, now with only his underclothes between him and her.

Dwarves ran hotter than Hobbits, that much had been clear for some time, but all the same, what little heat radiated from her compared to him, he could feel it, could feel her presence, feel that her skin—from toes to shoulders—was a finger’s width from his, at most. All he had to do was lean forward a fraction, and he felt himself against her abdomen; she inhaled sharply, cheeks darkening a bit more.

Her hands left his sides to pull his undershirt up, though she was only able to reach high enough to get it to his shoulders. He took it the rest of the way, taking it over his head as quickly as he could, loath to lose the sight of her for an instant more than necessary. When he could see her again, he had to smile to see that she was staring, wide-eyed, at his chest again. Hands ghosting tentatively over his muscles, his hair, he felt that warmth return, not lessening the heat he felt for her at all. But the jealousy he’d been wrestling with since learning of her former suitor did lessen; it had been plainly obvious the first time she’d felt his bare skin, on their wedding night, that she’d never been in such a position before. Whatever she and her ‘Nyr’ had done, none of it had involved removing clothing.

He’d known that—or should or would have, if he’d thought rationally at all—but the reminder was a relief.

What wasn’t a relief—the opposite entirely—was the feeling of her hands moving over him, and he raised a hand to finger the strap of her shift. She stilled, eyes flicking to his, and he raised his brows in a silent question, though he couldn’t quite keep his eyes from her lips. Swallowing, she nodded once, almost shyly, though he didn’t have any idea what she had to be shy about.

Slowly, not taking his eyes from hers, he slid the strap down over her shoulder, then the other. A smile flickering over her face, she raised her arms, pulling the fabric up as she did, and he let his hands fall to her hips, taking hold of the hem of the short garment, and helped her pull it over her head.

His breath caught in his throat to see her, bare but for a shallow triangle of fabric slung low on her hips, and the heat in his gut pulsed sharply. Her fingers hooked in the rim of his underclothes; his eyes snapped to hers, but despite the color in her cheeks, he saw no hesitance or shyness in her eyes, just the same silent question that he’d given her.

In answer, he pulled the drawstring’s knot loose. The drawers had ties at the shins as well, but he didn’t often tie those on council days, not fond of how the knots dug into the backs of his knees when he sat for more than the length of a meal. So when she pulled the waist of the drawers loose enough to fall past his hips, they fell all the way to the ground.

She inhaled sharply, entire face reddening— at least, all of her face and ears that he could see with her head tipped down. If the timing were different, he’d have given her all the time she needed, but he already felt as though he’d burst if they delayed any further.

Gently, he placed a finger under her chin and tipped her face up enough for him to kiss her. It was meant to be soft, gentle as both of them had been thus far, but the heat in his gut was leeching into the rest of him, pulling him toward her, and the kiss quickly grew more urgent than he’d intended.

But she returned it with a quiet moan, her hands looping around his neck as she arched into him. That didn’t help anything, and he broke the kiss as gently as he could manage, keeping his forehead pressed against hers as his hands cupped her hips, his thumbs hooking under the fabric covering her. Her eyes were dark—both with shadow and the same heat thrumming through him—but she could see him well enough to see the question in his gaze, he knew.

Grip tightening on his neck and shoulders, she kissed the corner of his mouth; reflexively, he turned his head far enough to catch her lips in a full kiss, and his hands flexed on her hips as she drew his bottom lip into her mouth. Drawing back just enough to lean her forehead against his, her breathing was as ragged as his, her grip on him as urgent as his on her.

His hands were shaking as he drew the fabric down—he didn’t know why, but he couldn’t help it—his breath shallow as more of her skin was revealed. She was trembling, he could feel; the fabric clung to her oddly, at the tip of the triangle, until it was forced to pull away as he pulled the straps a few inches further down, and he felt her shiver from head to toe, a trembling breath leaving her. He had to bend down to pull the fabric past her knees, but couldn’t keep from kissing her as soon as he felt it start to fall on its own.

She returned the kiss as forcefully as he gave it, one of her hands sinking into his hair as the other arm pressed against the back of his shoulders, giving her enough leverage to pull herself fully against him. Groaning low in his throat at the feeling, he indulged for a moment, mapping the increasingly-familiar space of her thighs and hips, before gripping the backs of her thighs—the spot that always got a reaction from her—and lifting.

Breath ragged, she slumped on top of him as he fell back against the mattress, rising and falling with his chest as he panted. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek, the hair on his chest tickling her face and neck. Both of them were damp, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

It wasn’t until both their hearts settled and his breathing was a steady, comforting rhythm that he broke the silence softly. “Promise me you won’t go out if there’s any news of it nearby.”

Closing her eyes, she cursed Smaug again, heat building behind her eyes. She’d tried to tell him earlier, tried harder than she’d ever tried anything before to tell him that no, Smaug wasn’t dead, and he’d cursed her, and instead this bloody curse had forced her to change the subject entirely. She’d been doing halfway well until then, skirting around the issue and dropping as many hints as she could, but then she hadn’t had a choice, and for several minutes afterward. It hadn’t been until she’d stood from the table that her actions had fully been her own again.

And then he’d wiped anything and everything to do with curses quite completely from her mind.

He could do that any bloody time he liked; she was beginning to be quite addicted to that lightning.

But could she promise that?

His fingers traced over her temple, coaxing her into raising her head to meet his worried eyes. “Please, Bel. I know how important time outside is to you, but please— at least leave from a different gate if there are sightings within a few days.”

Jaw clenched, she tried to find a rationale to get out of that— but then realized she didn’t need to. So long as she could keep from going out more often than once a fortnight, there never would be sightings within a few days. Stiffly, she nodded. “Alright. I won’t. I promise.”

Eyes soft, he cupped her cheek; despite how knotted her gut was, it was natural to lean into his touch, eyes falling closed as the tension drained from her. “I don’t want to control you, Bel. If it ever seems like I am, say something. I don’t… I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

He was barely audible at the last, and she nearly laughed, looking up at him with a smile fonder than she expected and a warmth that took her aback. “You keep doing everything you can to keep me comfortable; I really don’t expect you’ll ever make me feel trapped.”

He huffed lightly, eyes still somewhat troubled. “Still. Tell me.”

“I will.”

“You’d better.” Despite the grumble, his expression still held a level of concern that most Dwarves didn’t exhibit for acquaintances until they’d known each other months.

Still, she supposed they weren’t acquaintances, really. Not now. Not after they’d… thinking of just how much they’d shared over the last few days, she felt her cheeks heat, but ignored that, leaning up to kiss him softly.

He returned it, but didn’t deepen it at first, and even when he did, the kiss stayed gentle and slow, more reassuring than anything else. His arm looping around her back, he rolled them both to be on their sides, and she squirmed up so that neither of them would need to bend up or down; it was an odd feeling for her, and probably odder for him, by the look on his face. Laughing quietly together, they let their heads tip to the side to rest on the blankets, and the kiss resumed.

For some minutes, that was all they did, sometimes barely exchanging more than pecks, sometimes deepening it, sometimes simply resting in each others’ arms, his hand stroking lightly up and down her side while she traced loops over his shoulder blades.

Distantly, she was aware of her worries, of the fact that there was a world outside their room that scared her and strained him, but she didn’t let herself think about it. She simply breathed, and kissed her husband, and enjoyed the feeling of his skin against her side and under her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, that one was earthier than I remembered. Hope you guys enjoyed it, I guess.  
> Notes: 1) If you didn't catch the reference in the summary, it's a play on And the Money Kept Rolling In (And Out) from Evita. 2) Aaaaaaand now he knows. Well, he knows there *is* a wolf. Doesn't know why or who or how, but it's a start. Although knowing where might be more harm than good at this point. Hmmmmmmmm... 3) Here's the dress she's wearing in this chapter () 4) I have very high opinions of Hobbits and their cleverness, can you tell? 5) Yeah, I couldn't resist putting zippers in here. Slight bit of an ask, given that Hobbits aren't known for their metalworking or mining, but let's just assume that the brunt of the tool/infrastructure production happened before Hobbits and Dwarves broke apart. None of the impressive stuff, but things like rudimentary lathes. (Galaxy Quest, anyone?) And then the Hobbits were able to keep improving from there. 6) Fun fact, medieval and regency muslin was apparently better quality than literally anything modern.
> 
> If you haven't seen the new Kíli Baggins chapter, check it out, if you have, let me know what you thought! No promises on when the next chapter will be up, but if I don't get one out before the 25th, I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! (I'm aware not everyone celebrates Christmas per se, but it's the Christmas season (in America, at least) no matter who you are, so you can just amend that to be 'wonderful Christmas *season*'.
> 
> Увидимся!

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will be sporadic, and if you have any prompts or tropes you'd like to see, feel free to comment, because I am making this up as I go along! (Mostly)


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